14 Jan, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
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No, that's correct. In Splork's case, "quit" displays a warning and tells the user that the real command is "quit!".

Oh, got it. The way it is formulated tricked me.

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Shouldn't I only be able to sleep at night?

I don't even understand why you could not sleep when you want…cause I actually do that.

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Why should I be able to "sleep" on the city streets? Shouldn't a guard come along and wake me up for loitering?


FYI, people actually do that in real life…And they are not robbed right away (but that increases the odd a lot)

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The odds are pretty good that some wandering monster or bandit will come along and kill him, taking all his stuff, while nobody is at the helm.

I would only accept that if it did not happen right away. I would accept that if it happened at 100% if you looked at him standing still. Something tell me taht both case are false.

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Again, common sense says if you leave the game (by whatever means) in combat, you're probably going to log back in dead.


But we are not talking about a perticular case, but the general case. Out or in combat makes no differences. If you disconnect from an easy fight, common sense is you will just end up killing the mob, and in a difficult one maybe have auto flee quick in, because contrary to the mud that dont want to code any in game triggers (like just making a player walk to a rent space by himself if conenction is closed), some other do. (I do not make the player walk, yet, but if disconnected, if in fight he will try to flee, and recall, not meaning he will succeed mind you, but I dont make him stop to fight..

And I do that because disconnection can also happen to honest player that just have their connection dropped, not only the wimpy guy that want to avoid to fight.
14 Jan, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
KaVir said:
The expectation is that you're safe after typing "quit". The only muds I know of that leave your character in the game after typing "quit" are MOOs (and perhaps TinyMUD derivatives?) - but those I've played had no combat system, so safety wasn't an issue.

It certainly wasn't that way in the dikurivatives I played… you were "safe" in the sense that if you quit while you weren't in combat, you wouldn't die…

Precisely. It didn't "leave your character in the game" where you were vulnerable to attack. Once you type "quit", you expect to be safely removed from the game.

quixadhal said:
but that never meant you would come back exactly where you were before with all your stuff. In fact, the only way to be totally safe was to RENT.

Muds with rent take it a step further, but it's the same concept - once you type "rent" (which usually requires traveling to a specific room) your gear is safe (at least until you run out of gold). You certainly wouldn't expect to type "rent" then come back the next day and discover that someone had stolen all your equipment because your character had remained online.

quixadhal said:
Again, common sense says if you leave the game (by whatever means) in combat, you're probably going to log back in dead.

Sadly it's not always that easy to define "in combat". In my mud each character has an adrenaline timer which is set to 30 seconds every time they hit someone or get hit - once it drops to 0, they're no longer considered to be actively fighting. But if I allowed people to quit anywhere when their adrenaline timer was 0, they could simply quit as soon as they saw someone charging towards them. The only way to initiate PK against an unwilling target would be to sneak up on them with high rank invisibility.

So if I was going to go with the link-dead option, it would have to be based on location - if you're in a combat or PK location, your character goes link-dead instead of vanishing. Want an easy kill? Just follow someone while invisible and wait until they "quit". They wouldn't technically be in combat, and they'd probably expect quit to have moved their character safely offline, plus they wouldn't always be killed (it would depend on whether or not someone was stalking them). All they'd know is that sometimes they'd log on to find they'd been killed - it'd most likely be reported as a bug.
14 Jan, 2013, mangan wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
This thread is going in quite a few different directions, and people responding to each other are also talking about different topics yet using similar vocabularies (which they have defined) but with differing definitions.

The type/style/genre/admin of a game is going to determine what should happen when a character leaves the game world. It will also determine what to do when a player disconnects without formally implying a desire to have the character leave the game world. It will also determine what is a fair system for both such scenarios, and should have a user interface which is consistent in regards to the expectations of the players (whether because of their history with gaming; experience with this particular game; or information in the form of help files, warnings, websites or players).

The concept of rent, or sleeping, isn't really a part of the topic as described by the thread subject; although the same arguments I just stated do arise. Ultimately, it's the decision of the admin/designer/developer to determine what is best for the game in question. It's then up to the admin to decide what is best in terms of game play, player retention, admin stubbornness and priority.

Personally, I don't see why one would purposefully avoid serving the lowest common denominator in terms of player retention, while training them to be customized players. As a player of numerous games and MUDs, I would not expect many to have a rent system now-a-days. I'm not saying they shouldn't (since as a player it is not ultimately my choice as to whether or not it exists, and that topic has been address is prior threads), but I also don't expect help files to be required reading for me to get into a game. If I have to read the 'quit' help file before I leave a game, then how many help files must I read before I actually play? How much meta-work (non-game-play, non-tutorial) is expected of a new player before they should enjoy a game? How long should a new player stick around to "get hooked" before they decide to leave for a more polished game?

quixadhal said:
You'd hate my old mud Rarva. It featured rent, so if you quit out in the middle of nowhere, you drop all your stuff to the ground for anyone to scavange as they walk by. :)

I'm sure today's kiddies would whine and complain. I have no problem with that. If they're too stupid to figure out they lost their stuff because they quit in the middle of a fight (typed quit, mind you, while combat messages scrolled on their screen), they probably aren't smart enough to play my mud for very long either.

You know what you get when you coddle people and cater to the lowest common denominator? Stupid players who can't play without being coddled. You can keep them.


My points above are meant to outline that while I do not personally agree with losing all my equipment when I quit, at least for most games that use character advancement (which I think should separate character concerns from player/client concerns), that functionality alone would not upset me as a player. I may decide that such a game is not for me and decide not to play, but that wouldn't have anything to do with me being upset. What would upset me, however, is if such actions took place without my knowledge. Splork's example of a warning and using another command, "quit!", or Runter's concept of "quit now" which forces a disconnect both fit the concept of informing the player of a decision they are making that will affect their character by quitting in such a state. They key point here is that players should be making informed decisions as opposed to using trial-and-error for meta-game mechanics. Let the trial-and-error learning take place based on how they play their characters, not by saying " they probably aren't smart enough to play my mud for very long either." After all, the smarter players are generally going to be the ones that push the boundaries of the systems and navigate their way to the top of the competition. I wouldn't want to lose the smarter players because they do not read hours of help files (when covering numerous topics, not just rent/quit).
15 Jan, 2013, Kaz wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
quixadhal said:
KaVir said:
The expectation is that you're safe after typing "quit". The only muds I know of that leave your character in the game after typing "quit" are MOOs (and perhaps TinyMUD derivatives?) - but those I've played had no combat system, so safety wasn't an issue.

It certainly wasn't that way in the dikurivatives I played… you were "safe" in the sense that if you quit while you weren't in combat, you wouldn't die…

Precisely. It didn't "leave your character in the game" where you were vulnerable to attack. Once you type "quit", you expect to be safely removed from the game.


My recollection of Diku derivitives is quite different: Attempting to quit while out of combat would indeed remove your character from the game. However, if you attempted to quit while in combat, it would refuse; probably to avoid rage-quits. Disconnecting while in combat would leave your character in-game and idle, where they would almost certainly die.
15 Jan, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
Kaz said:
KaVir said:
quixadhal said:
KaVir said:
The expectation is that you're safe after typing "quit". The only muds I know of that leave your character in the game after typing "quit" are MOOs (and perhaps TinyMUD derivatives?) - but those I've played had no combat system, so safety wasn't an issue.

It certainly wasn't that way in the dikurivatives I played… you were "safe" in the sense that if you quit while you weren't in combat, you wouldn't die…

Precisely. It didn't "leave your character in the game" where you were vulnerable to attack. Once you type "quit", you expect to be safely removed from the game.


My recollection of Diku derivitives is quite different: Attempting to quit while out of combat would indeed remove your character from the game. However, if you attempted to quit while in combat, it would refuse; probably to avoid rage-quits. Disconnecting while in combat would leave your character in-game and idle, where they would almost certainly die.

I'm not sure how that differs from what I said. The "quit" command would either fail, or it would remove you from the game, but typing "quit" would never disconnect you while leaving your character sitting around link-dead.
15 Jan, 2013, Kaz wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
The implication, as I read it, was that you could quit while in combat and not have your character left there. My recollection is that attempting to quit did leave your character in the game, albeit still connected. If you really needed to be out of the game very suddenly*, then it really would leave your character to die and not safely remove you from the game.



*ObTintin: #boss
15 Jan, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
Kaz said:
The implication, as I read it, was that you could quit while in combat and not have your character left there.

If you follow the thread back, you'll see it started diverging from the other thread after this comment:

quixadhal said:
One point I'll disagree with in your list is "Cannot quit while in a combat zone." I believe you should ALWAYS be able to quit, no matter what.

Which led to:

quixadhal said:
I don't understand why you are all assuming "quit" means "escape bad things." Quit means stop playing and disconnect.

Which led to the text you quoted. In Diku, the "quit" command doesn't disconnect you and "leave your character in the game" - it removes your character from the game (or fails). If the command succeeds, you don't expect to log on the next day to find that someone killed you after you quit.
16 Jan, 2013, Kaz wrote in the 28th comment:
Votes: 0
Right. I get where you're coming from. Do continue!

(Aside: "quit now" is my favoured implementation as well. I already have "shutdown now" as an admin command. It sticks with the pattern.)
16 Jan, 2013, Ssolvarain wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
It's just occurred to me that some of you are taking this, and your role as owner/admin far too seriously.

It is, after all, only a game.

You're catering to a crowd seeking entertainment. You can pull the whole 'my way or the highway' routine, but it won't really impress anyone when it comes time to log out and go do something else. If you make it a hassle to leave your game, people will leave. When rent became obsolete (It did. Sorry if you disagree.) most people didn't look back. It's not hard to see why.
16 Jan, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
It's just occurred to me that some of you are taking this, and your role as owner/admin far too seriously.

It is, after all, only a game.

If you want to get technical, it's actually a forum for "Discussion of general coding and design issues". If you're not interested in discussing such issues then nobody is forcing you to participate, but if you do decide to join in (and particularly if you claim one approach is the "best"), you have to accept the possibility that some people may disagree with you.

Constructive criticism is a Good Thing ™. It can give us essential insight into problems we may not have considered, and help us improve our games. If you can't defend your designs on MudBytes, the chances are that they probably need a rethink.

Some of my muds most popular features were the direct result of criticism, which inspired me to rethink parts of my design.

Ssolvarain said:
You're catering to a crowd seeking entertainment. You can pull the whole 'my way or the highway' routine, but it won't really impress anyone when it comes time to log out and go do something else. If you make it a hassle to leave your game, people will leave. When rent became obsolete (It did. Sorry if you disagree.) most people didn't look back. It's not hard to see why.

You accuse other people of having a "my way or the highway" mindset, yet you're the one claiming one approach is the "best", and that rent is "obsolete". By contrast, this is what I said about rent:

I've made it clear on numerous occasions that I strongly dislike rent. However I don't believe in dismissing an established design concept out of hand without first weighing up its pros and cons. You asked if there were any redeeming qualities, so I listed what I perceive to be some of its advantages.

Yes, you can achieve similar results with other solutions, but each approach has its own pros and cons. I don't consider rent a "bandaid", but neither is it something I would ever use in my own designs.
16 Jan, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
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If you make it a hassle to leave your game, people will leave.


Well PK are usually happy that people can just not 'flee quit'…..The not PK are not affected. This features was indeed ASKED by PK.
It was defeinitely not my way or the highway, but people wanting a feature me acknowledging there was indeed a problem with how easy it was to pick your fight and providing a solution that pleased them. It is still possible to flee, but before quit you now have to run (and be skilled at it, there are also numerous command to help you running, and also some to intercept people running). Everyone is happy this way, and the people still have the disconnect client option. They may be exploring some area where moving is dangerous, and dont have the time to get back to a true safe place. Disconnect does not mean they will die for sure, it will jsut mean there is a risk. If no one hunt them, they will probably be safe.
16 Jan, 2013, Ssolvarain wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
You accuse other people of having a "my way or the highway" mindset, yet you're the one claiming one approach is the "best", and that rent is "obsolete".


I only stated my preference once. I don't recall claiming that was the only approach to take. And, yes… it is a forum. Thank you for pointing this out to me. But if you'd have taken the time to actually read it, and not jump to conclusions after skimming it half-way, you'd be aware that I was referring to a mud. You know, those things we work on? I was also referring to the mindset that some people have that "this is my sandbox, like it or leave it". I'm merely pointing out that when you start agonizing over the fact that people can actually leave the game instead of doing what you want them to, maybe it's time to take a step back and rethink your approach.

I'm also perfectly aware of constructive criticism. I sift through plenty of it when I decide what I'd like to make next. I read what you said about rent (I actually read entire threads), and I agree with you. It was an EXAMPLE of making people jump through hoops because "this is my sandbox, like it or leave it" in the current day and age.

And yes, rent is obsolete. Like I said, sorry if anyone disagrees with me. We have terabytes of storage now, so memory limitations no longer apply. I severely doubt it was intended primarily as a balancing mechanism. The fact that it served as a balancing mechanism was more of a byproduct of limited storage. A case of "This is what is. How can I make it work for me?". It was an original idea, much like the Model T. But, with advancement, we've discovered better ways to do things. I can safely say that's about as close to the definition of "obsolete" as it gets.

I think I'm just gonna go back to lurking now. I get the feeling that some people don't think I'm qualified enough to discuss these things.
17 Jan, 2013, mangan wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
And yes, rent is obsolete. Like I said, sorry if anyone disagrees with me. We have terabytes of storage now, so memory limitations no longer apply. I severely doubt it was intended primarily as a balancing mechanism. The fact that it served as a balancing mechanism was more of a byproduct of limited storage.


http://www.thefreedictionary.com/obsolet... said:
obsolete
adj.
1. No longer in use: an obsolete word.
2. Outmoded in design, style, or construction: an obsolete locomotive.
<snip>


You're stating something as a fact, "rent is obsolete", and then bypassing discuss by conditioning your argument as an opinion. There is obviously some discussion by the community (specifically MudBytes members) as to whether or not 'rent' is obsolete. It is clearly still in use for some MUDs, but the point of this thread seems to be targeting the second definition of obsolete (as shown above) as to whether of not the design concept is outmoded (outdated).

Some discussion is about the original stock implementation of 'rent', which was likely designed around disk storage as you stated. However, it also had other "byproducts" which are relevant today even if the primary design requirement is now obsolete. This discussion is therefore determining whether 'rent' should be used as opposed to other design decisions, whether it should be modified slightly to avoid the cons behind the concept, or whether it should be stripped completely. Every design feature has unintended consequences to some degree, and they have to be considered when changes to the design are made.

Obviously some people defend the idea that a 'rent' command still meets valid design requirements for their games, and that other methodologies are either not as efficient or are not a priority in their to-do-list. Others may simply not agree with it but don't know how to better cover the advantages the 'rent' system does have. Thus this discussion is not obsolete.

Edit: In an interest of continuing the discussion and an attempt to leverage your ideas, as opposed to giving you " the feeling that some people don't think [you're] qualified enough to discuss these things."
You mentioned that there are better ways than rent to handle the design byproducts it had, such as balancing. What are they in your mind? How feasible are they to implement, or what byproducts of these systems should a designer be aware of? If your mindset was instead based upon a claim that players are not willing to "put up" with a rent system, then what support do you have for this claim (or is it just your personal opinion)?
17 Jan, 2013, Hades_Kane wrote in the 34th comment:
Votes: 0
Seemed like to me that Ssol was largely echoing what has already been stated, and plenty of examples have already been given on how to achieve the secondary benefits of rent without the annoyance of rent itself.

Regardless of whether or not people have rewritten or updated their rent system, I would also argue that in its traditional and most common form, rent is an archaic, unnecessary system that is basically a relic of an age of computing that is long past (which fits fully well within the definition of obsolete).

There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and maybe splork and plamzi have made their rent systems super awesome, I don't know, I won't play a game that has rent, but even the most obsolete systems I'm sure can be made into something valid. But I also don't subscribe to the idea that just because a "feature" comes with a codebase, that there necessarily is value to it (I believe it was plamzi on the thread linked from TMC stating that he believes you should never remove a feature), and that sometimes a MUD is simply better off without something that was coded, and if there were any redeeming qualities to it to begin with (secondary or otherwise), that there are often times better ways of going about it than whatever some guys in the 90s came up with. The few upsides to rent, in my mind, simply do not outweigh the negatives.
17 Jan, 2013, Runter wrote in the 35th comment:
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[…]I would also argue that in its traditional and most common form, rent is an archaic, unnecessary system that is basically a relic of an age of computing that is long past


This is a forum for MUDs after all. :devil:
17 Jan, 2013, Hades_Kane wrote in the 36th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
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[…]I would also argue that in its traditional and most common form, rent is an archaic, unnecessary system that is basically a relic of an age of computing that is long past


This is a forum for MUDs after all. :devil:


Touch :p
17 Jan, 2013, Splork wrote in the 37th comment:
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There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and maybe splork and plamzi have made their rent systems super awesome, I don't know, I won't play a game that has rent, but even the most obsolete systems I'm sure can be made into something valid.


I certainly would not say that but I would ask this:

How would one even know if a game had rent or not? While this discussion clearly shows quite strong feelings towards the feature, not one MUD site that I have looked at, in regards to our mud listings, asks "Does your game have rent?" So to me, it seems its the most important unimportant feature around ( if that even makes sense ). The closest question is TMC with "Is equipment saved when players return: yes or no ". Which I believe, is a much more important question, as rent is subjective from game to game.
One of the newer protocols, MSSP which is based on giving information about a MUD, does not even include Rent as an option.

As I stated in the other forum, one can cut link in our game and come back with everything they left with, at a common recall point for that continent. This is quite similar to non-rent systems. Rent also does not start until so many hours have passed and its so low that there have been maybe 5 incidents in 21 years of equipment being held by an Innkeeper until the player could pay the fee back( annoyance yes, I agree and we will probably remove this ).

In all of my years on our game, I have NEVER heard somebody log in and ask on a channel or forum if our game had rent or not. Due to this, I can not say if one would of quit or not because it has not happened to my knowledge.

We have made rent obscure and unobtrusive 99.9% of the time which is why I have a difficult time simply removing it to remove it. Its has some relatively nice benefits for us while having very little downside.

This discussion has made me rethink the issue and toss it up for discussion. I hate the fact some people might not play because of it without even seeing how little to no affect it would have on them but at the same time, changing something just to change it seems silly to me. I may sound as if I am pro rent but I am not. It just seems to work well with the changes we have made over the course of two decades.


I've never really played another MUD. I have logged into a few others, out of respect for their developers and looked around. So I am having a difficult time discussing a comparison in regards to rent vs non-rent. I am assuming in a game without rent, that the major differences is you can type a command and exit the game with buffs/equipment and that you are not charged anything for equipment which you are taking with you?
17 Jan, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 38th comment:
Votes: 0
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In all of my years on our game, I have NEVER heard somebody log in and ask on a channel or forum if our game had rent or not

I do not advertise a single bit (except being online and in mu dlisting) and in the few real new players (not old one going back to take a look) I had two or three people spefically ask this very precise question :)

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am assuming in a game without rent, that the major differences is you can type a command and exit the game with buffs/equipment and that you are not charged anything for equipment which you are taking with you?


Exactly your char is just totally "out of the world". Like if he was in another dimension for himself where he cannot be affected by anything. And with free passage back to the world.
18 Jan, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 39th comment:
Votes: 0
Splork said:
How would one even know if a game had rent or not?

To be honest you can make a pretty accurate guess from the codebase. If it's Diku derived, and not on the Merc branch, it probably has rent. Otherwise it probably doesn't.

I've seen a handful few muds that removed rent, but I don't think I've ever seen one that added it (barring the original of course).

Splork said:
The closest question is TMC with "Is equipment saved when players return: yes or no ". Which I believe, is a much more important question, as rent is subjective from game to game.

I suspect that goes back to the early days of LPmuds, where equipment didn't save at all, but I don't think there are many muds like that today. I know one LPmud lists itself as "Equipment Saved" because it allows players to put up to 3 items into storage, and retrieve them the next time they log on. Compare that with my mud, which allows players to put up to 250 items into storage and also saves everything they're wearing and carrying in each of their shapechanged forms. That's a pretty big difference…if it were up to me, I'd break it down into more than just "yes" and "no".

Splork said:
I've never really played another MUD. I have logged into a few others, out of respect for their developers and looked around. So I am having a difficult time discussing a comparison in regards to rent vs non-rent. I am assuming in a game without rent, that the major differences is you can type a command and exit the game with buffs/equipment and that you are not charged anything for equipment which you are taking with you?

In some cases (like the LPmud I mentioned) you have to take off your gear and place it into storage, which is actually a bit like rent without the cost - you have to be in a specific place, if you just quit then anything you're wearing or carrying will fall on the floor.

But usually your gear is saved along with the charac..., so you can just type "quit" and then it'll still be there when you next log on. In muds with level restrictions, gear above your level may not save (depending on the mud).
18 Jan, 2013, Hades_Kane wrote in the 40th comment:
Votes: 0
^ What they said :p

As far as knowing whether or not a game has rent?

If I start playing a game and run into indications that I have to quit in a certain location, or do something specific with my equipment before I log off if I want to keep my equipment, and especially if any of this costs any in-game currency, then I won't be returning.

This is different then not being able to quit in certain areas, that's fine, but too restrictive of a quit mechanism and I have no interest.

If I played your game and went through pretty much never having a concern over my equipment saving, then I don't imagine it would be an issue. It seems like your version of rent is a nearly insignificant part of the play experience, where on games with it's typical representation, it's a defining part of the play experience.
20.0/45