I have to admit that I sped-read most of your post, however, the point here is that we are not talking about normal people running about their daily lives trying to measure cars or swords or whatever; we are talking about people playing a game as legendary heroes etc. Even if we grant the argument that such legendary heroes cannot fairly quickly tell apart equipment quality, I see no good reason to force players to empirically measure every single piece of equipment they own. Yes, you lose out on the occasional discovery like the one you mentioned (although I am not convinced it translates well to the online, DM-less environment), but you also lose out on all the "pleasure" of having to grind your way through measurements.

What it comes down to is this: as a legendary character, do I really have to waste time hacking at trees to figure out which weapon I should slay dragons with?

Because - and I can't stress the importance of this enough - "fun" and "playability" trumph "realism".

On mine there's some stuff they start out with, main weapon (based on chosen weapon skills), shield (unless they're using a polearm), a torch, a leather waterskin, and a leather armor. Then they get a 'Newbie Pack' that contains a random number of random kinds of food from around the game, along with some money (usually 2-600 copper, sometimes a gold piece in lieu of 100 of the copper) inside the pack, a map of their city, and a spare torch.

They can find some better equipment in the 'newbie arena' which is attached to the school. The tougher mobs have the slightly better equipment than the start eq, but also a higher chance of killing the character.

There's also a 'Trader Joe' guy at the start of the school that will trade even better equipment (leveling type equipment, yeah, still use the temp stats per old Merc/Rom), but you have to go and get items from around the game and return them in trade. One 'quest' is to return a boar skin from Solace, the trader then will give them a pair of pants of the same material. Or a certain bracer from Neraka, which he'll trade for a better ring, a nice fire-proofed sack from Palanthas that he'll trade for hm, I forget. Overall though, it seems to help with players reading maps of the main three cities, and being able to start to find their way around.

We do have an 'outfit' command that works for 1-5th (101 player levels) that will give them a new torch if they don't have one, a new waterskin, shield etc. Although, I do think that I will limit that by time played so that it's only for the truly 'newbie'.

Overall, I've found that increasing the challenge of the game has made it more enjoyable to play as long as I don't make it 'stupid hard' heh. So all of the 'here have every leveling eq you need' in the arena is no longer, some you can get there, but the better equipment is in the main game. (Same goes for the weapons/fighting equipment).

And yes, I'd _love_ to get rid of leveling equipment and base off perm stats and have a Con increase work across levels etc etc. Just fighting against going on 14 years of play/players/pfiles etc, and I don't like pwipes (meaning I'd have to do mean math heh).

Anyway, that's my ramble ;).

I guess there's an argument to be made to get rid of the traditional identify spell and display all stats when looking at an object. Some hybrid mechanism could work where you need to the right skills to get advanced information about an object, but regardless of skill level one should be able to know if something sucks or not.

BTW, to answer my own question, new players start with a club (an object), a light, hat and vest (70% of their AC - most slots do nothing), and some food. New players don't have a class yet, so they have no weapons skills, but in my game objects do damage based on their weight. As they go through School, they'll pickup some more EQ, maps, and water, and when they join a Guild (class) they'll get a weapon. My reasoning (and results) are the same as Skol's, so I won't repeat all of it.

(I really like the Trader Joe idea, though, think I'll steal that!)

Is this a design decision for balance, or are there other reasons here? I ask because I think this is pretty clearly not true in real life, so I was wondering what went into the decision. E.g., it probably makes calculating damage and balancing things a fair bit easier.

So what does a "new character" represent? What are they assumed to have done with their life up until that point? What dark twist of fate causes every newcomer to the city to arrive naked from the waist down - or is it best not to ask? ;)

The reason I give characters a full set of starting equipment is because I assume they were already significant people prior to first logging on. Even a brand new character can begin play as a swordsmaster capable of making short work of villagers and even guards - and if they choose that route, it makes sense for them to start the game with a sword and a suit of armour.

And of course, every starting character (barring dragon hatchlings) has underwear ;)


Interestingly enough, I apply the same logic to armour. The encumbrance modifier on a piece of armour is automatically added to the damage soak. And in case DavidHaley is curious, yes, that was primarily done for balance.

I couldn't agree more. I don't find min-maxing numerical stats to be "fun". I don't think having to spend time worrying about exactly which "+1" needs to be where to reach some theoretical peak helps the game become more playable. To me, it makes it more like work, which is what I want to avoid when playing a game.

But, then again, I like to play the game, not sit back and watch my epic pants play.



If your character is really legendary, why does it matter what their weapon's stats are?

Then why play competitive muds?

Because I like to compete, which I prefer to do by learning the game world and how to beat people in it, rather than relying on math formulas and numerical superiority.

If I know the layout of a game and know the route you're likely to take, I can often enjoy setting a trap along your route, or running ahead and waiting in stealth for you. If you are beating me, knowing how to flee and then get out of tracking range is far more fun than wondering if your 2d6+3 sword would have chewed through my hit points and chain mail in 3 more hits, or 4 more.

If we assume your question to be valid, why are we having this discussion in the first place? Why are we even talking about weapon stats, if they don't matter? As for the question, surely players on your MUD aren't peasants and farmers, but great characters meant for skill and glory.


Nothing here precludes using numbers with strategy. Indeed, I would make a stronger statement: somebody who only thinks of which sword does more damage is likely to lose in the greater strategic picture, on any game that actually has interesting strategy in the first place.

It's not as if you can't set traps and be otherwise clever in your tactics if you know how strong swords are without having to whack at tree stumps first.

Your preferences don't actually matter, as the two alternatives you list are not mutually exclusive - a good player will learn both the game and the maths, and if you're only using one you'll never be able to compete with them.

The fact is that knowing the numbers gives you a huge advantage, and therefore the most competitive players will work them out. Hiding the numbers just raises the entry barrier, widening the gap between the good players and the bad players. Revealing those numbers means you no longer have to worry about working them out (or falling behind if you don't) - you can instead get on with enjoying the game.

If you mean basing damage on weight, yes, it was easy. And it's mostly for newbies, as objects lose out to weapons pretty quickly - the weight is just counted as one die. If the 'material' field could be counted on, I'd use that as well.

If you mean why no class, that's an attempt to simplify things at the beginning. (I'm not sure it's really working, though)

You and I have very different experiences with the games we've played. In every example I've seen, games with detailed numbers available to them become the playground for min-maxers, and casual players are slaughtered to the point where they usually just quit, as they haven't the time or patience to sift through the morass of statistics to know exactly what set of gear they should have at any given character advancement point. The games that don't throw numbers all over tend to have people just playing and not worrying about it. Sure, the min-maxers who ARE on those games excel, but the overall population doesn't seem to be so obsessed with gear.

Now, if you're building a game exclusively for those who DO enjoy pouring over spreadsheets and planning their character's entire career for the next year from day 1… then yes, they will only be happy seeing every statistic they can get their hands on. That is a small (but vocal!) minority of the overall gaming population though.

Personally, I like delaying the choice of class until you've entered the game world and looked around a bit. Not so much for simplification, but just because it gives people a chance to see some of the content and possibly play around with the game mechanics before they set themselves on a path.

People here keep saying that all their players are already heroes when they walk into town on the first day. If that's the case, why is it common practice to pit them against rats, chickens, peasants, and other such vermin? I prefer to think that a level 1 character as an adventurer. They might become a hero, if they apply themselves, but at level 1 they aren't there yet.

I forgot to mention that, and yes, it's all an attempt to provide a gradual introduction. My players start as Zygotes, actually, until they choose a race. If appropriate for the race, their first room will be an Egg. Then, they are Commoners until they choose a class (Guild). With stats of '3', Zygotes aren't really viable, but if you wish, you can reach level 30 (Hero) as a Commoner. In other words, I've dropped the starting age from 17 (which never really meant anything) to 0. For those who want immersive RP, their time in their Race's Village (Mud School) is their youth - the time they spent growing up. When you feel "mature", you leave your home village, travel to the city, and join a Guild.

I don't understand your argument, Quix. You just now said that numbers are bad because they encourages spreadsheets etc. But previously, you said that hidden numbers are not a barrier to competition, because you can spend time measuring how many whacks and thwacks it takes to kill a kobold with one sword versus the other. This is a very empirical exercise built upon data collection and number crunching, in some sense the epitome of statistics. How is this not the same problem as numbers, made even worse by the fact that you have to spend time collecting the data before crunching it?

Frankly, the most convincing argument for me is the one you made about the kind of player that one game attracts versus the other. I'll buy that fairly easily. But I think that is an entirely different argument than the one about numbers being easier or not.

Saw this coming and tried three times last night to address it, but never got it quite right. I agree that quix seems to be arguing several positions at once. Not as in "a wrongful argument", this isn't a debate, but as in, "I've got all these things that annoy me, and they seem connected." And I can't help wondering, if, as he mentioned above, it isn't just a matter of "different experiences". I also feel we're discussing old games as examples just because of the common experience, but KaVir and I are really referring to (and perhaps defending) our current codebases.

I can understand feeling numbers are "unnatural", but I still think (being a 'real' engineer) that numbers are the most efficient means of communicating measurements. Typing 'kill' isn't exactly the same as tensing my muscles for a sword swing, either. I guess it's a matter of whatever's on the screen enabling that old, "suspension of disbelief" so prized by SciFi writers.

To give some idea of how little I've thought of this, here's an obvious idea that just struck me. You could use descriptive words as the tens column, and adjectives for the single digits. Thus, you could be "peckish" or "hungry", being 10 or 20. "Very peckish", might be 18, while "slightly peckish" 12. Follow through with "slightly scratch" being a dam message of 12, and you've got the beginnings of a wide range of verbal enumeration.

In my experience, the casual players tend to copy the hardcore players. Their characters might not be particularly original or cutting-edge, but they still tend to be very effective, because they emulate the tried-and-true setups discovered and stress-tested by the min-maxers.

Hiding the numbers actually makes it more difficult for the casual players to compete, because without knowing the precise stats it's not clear exactly what they need to copy. As I said earlier, by promoting obscurity over transparency you're actually widening the gap between the good players and the bad players.


Perhaps because such games drive away the more competitive players, by forcing them to jump through boring, repetitive hoops?


Even a skilled warrior can be overwhelmed by a swarm of rats, or by a mob of angry peasants armed with pitchforks.

We do this on my MUD to some extent to allow meaningful comparison while appeasing immersion-heavy folks. It generally works quite well, although you occasionally run into problems of trying to figure out good words for the scale. For example, when trying to measure physical strength, how do you order "strong", "powerful", "mighty"?