Many features are heavily interconnected though. To give you an example, supposing I were to start writing up some initial ideas for a combat system - as it's going to be quite complex, I decide to break it into subcategories:


Subcategory 1: Fighting techniques

Fighting techniques are a type of skill, laid out in a skill-web, with similar techniques influencing each other. Techniques are improved separately for each weapon, but once again these skills influence each other to varying degrees through the skill-web.

The effectiveness of fighting techniques partially depends on how widely they are known - you are at a disadvantage if your opponent is familiar with your moves.

Players can design their own fighting techniques or even entire fighting styles (although they'd need to establish the building blocks of their style before moving on to the more advanced techniques).

Players (and mobs) can teach other players (and mobs) fighting techniques.

Players can also learn fighting techniques from observation - not just watching other players fight, but also from watching the way animals and monsters move. Spend enough time watching a dragon and you could use it as the basis for designing your own dragon-style martial arts.

There are no hardcoded fighting techniques, every move was originally designed by a player. When the mud first opens, the first players have to teach themselves how to fight. Later players can learn from existing players or from fighting schools, but even if they learn from mobs the style they learn will originally have been created by a player.

Techniques are tied in with the coordinate-based movement system, so that different moves can allow you to close distances, move out of reach (or throw your opponent out of reach), attack someone from behind, bull-rush someone (combining movement with an attack), etc.

Techniques are tied in with the environment, so that you can shoot someone from your position high up in a tree, or drop on their head from the tree - then later throw them into the side of a different tree. You could nail them to a tree, break off a branch and use it as an improvised weapon, or even chop down a tree so that it falls on them.

The technique system is generic enough that it can also be used for crafting, magic, etc.

Subcategory 2: Wounds

There are no hit points, instead each blow inflicts a "wound".

There is a huge range of different wound types, but each individual wound is unique.

Every wound is tracked separately, and can influence a wide range of factors such as movement, concentration, bleeding, specific penalties, etc.

Each wound heals (and can be medically treated) separately.

Certain types of wound may become infected (or heal badly) if not treated.

Some wounds may leave a permanent scar and/or penalty (eg a facial wound that takes your eye) even after they've healed.

Wounds are included in the dynamically-generated character descriptions.

A bleeding wound will stain clothing and worn equipment, and is mentioned in the dynamically-generated item descriptions.

The wound system is generic enough that it can also be used for diseases, poisons, etc.

Now I've only included two subcategories of combat so far, but already its tied in with skills, magic, crafting, movement, equipment, healing, diseases, poisons, dynamic descriptions, and many other factors. I'm going to have real trouble trying to design combat in isolation.

Of course, but from the point of view of a collaborative theoretical exercise to come up with the most "advanced" features, I think decoupling systems in this way would make the whole process more fun.

I think this will work itself out naturally. If Kavir describes a system which depends on a second system, then one of the interesting parts of the discussion will be the divergence into the possibilities of different ways those second system might work, and how that would affect the main system.

If there is an underlying system on which many others are built on top of, then it might be best considered as a whole. To be presented with part of a larger system and told that it is heavily coupled to other systems which description is not given for limits my ability to discuss it. There may be parts which can be discussed, but then again, there might be parts which have some unclarified relationship and reasoning that are alluded to, but not to a degree that allows discussion.

One thing I think we might consider is posting each advanced feature in a separate thread. Maybe we should do that in another forum though, like coding and design. We could also add links to them in this thread to keep track of them. Although, maybe worldbuilding and design might be a more correct place.

Ascendantmud (Vaporware I believe) from Teelf (You can find some of his posts on Mudlab, and a couple on Mudconnector, and if you dug deep in MudDev) seemed to have pretty advanced concepts, but the only place i heard some of his ideas I think was on Eiz and Yui's mud (Piratemud?!?), which is another one of those muds that had huge potential if Eiz and Yui had ever done anything with it. Of course while we are talking about games that no-one has ever played, the fact is Skotos produced some amazing revolutions to the hobby, but has seemed to puttered out on development of innovative game-changing paradigms.

I don't remember a "Piratemud", but I do recall Yui Unifex talking about some of the concepts he used in Aetas, and before that in Deus. I think I actually connected to one of his muds as well, but I don't remember much about it. I always got the impression that he preferred trying out new ideas rather than sticking to the creation of a single game.


Are Skotos still actively developing text muds though? I know they added Ironclaw Online recently, but I was under the impression that it was developed externally.

I recall connecting to Teelf's server to play around with his textual 3d movement engine, so I don't think it qualifies as vaporware, unless you mean something else he was working on.

yes Aetas and Deus, it's been a long time since i've tried to log on to either I seem to recall something to do with pirates on the game or maybe it was just Eiz being piratey.


That was my point.



so there actually was a game? I was pretty sure that Teelf's mud was one of the ones that had game changing ideas but never made it out of development.

Seems to have a web site still, at least.

And having experienced this advanced feature, how did it strike you?

There's gonna be overlap. What might work is doing it on a wiki so you can hyper link and don't end up describing the same features in detail several times.

Regarding Teelf, I remember crashing his mud through his telopt parser, I never actually played it.

Ah sorry, I misunderstood your comment, I thought you might have been suggesting that their development had gradually become less innovative and more mainstream. That would have been interesting to note if so, as one could compare it with certain other commercial muds that stick with polishing the tried-and-true rather than pushing the envelope with innovative features.


Well spotted. So to summarise, it "aims to be the best player vs. player experience to be found anywhere", features a 3D environment with a physics engine, and the last update was in July 2004. We know it existed in some form, but it seems likely that it's now dead or at least shelved. Could be a worthwhile addition to your wiki.

I suppose there's a sliding scale of vaporware or vapormuds, from intentionally fictional like CornMud to never quite making it out of development like AscendantMud. I would also guess quite a few running muds have vaporfeatures that may have been started with a lot of fanfare but never completed for some reason or other.



The only thing I remember was that it satisfied my curiosity that a good text interface to movement in a 3d world could be done well. As it was 6 or 7 years ago, unfortunately I don't recall exactly what that was. :-(

Don't forget the vaporteammembers.

You are a cruel, cruel man, Tyche, to dangle that carrot in front of me. I get to deal with comments like:

"Simulating the act of being within a space, beyond the standard boxes-connected-to-boxes practice (ie 'rooms'), is very hard to do without creating a complex UI to control movement and such. KaVir did this with Godwars 2, creating a 3d space that players could move and fight within - Godwars 2 wasn't very popular however, and I can probably assume the controls were clunky at best." – Morfina.

And:

"There have also been some attempts to 'escape' the rigid structure of rooms connected to rooms - KaVir, father of Godwars, created a 3D version of his codebase with a pretty excellent combat system. However, it was incredibly difficult to navigate around, even as a MUD veteran. The MUD failed horribly (Godwars II), as a result of this." – Alathon.

Then you come along and say you've seen a good solution…but that you've forgotten what it was :P

I've tried sending Teelf an email through mudlab, maybe he's still around.

I told you how to fix some of your navigation issues several months ago. I guess we can add vaporadvice to the list.

The more constructive thing would be to point to said advice; I think many people would like to hear it, and it's easy for things to get lost in other posts.

Not sure which post you're referring to, I went back over the last 15 pages of your posts and came up with the following possibilities:


I already do this.



I already do this.



While this isn't a bad idea, it doesn't actually address the problem. People aren't getting lost or having trouble working out where to go - they're having difficulty with the interface.

Yeah, but I think it mitigates some of the potential annoying aspects of an interface. If it's annoying to stay on a winding or spiraling path manually this could address that problem. Even if you had a great interface for short range travel it's possible the world would need to be contrived (such as more straight paths) to make long travel less difficult.

I'm pretty sure GW2 lets you pathfind to landmarks (or at least areas and dungeon entrances) though. I don't know that it has roads per se.

But on topic, I'd be interested in a 3D mockup at least. What would that look like?