Ssolvarain
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#31 id:28459 Posted Jul 8, 2009, 10:07 pm
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quixadhal said:But, I suppose the idea of quests are beyond the thuggish mentality of the Diku community. After all, their idea of a quest is the simple "go kill 10 of vnum 3001" or "go fetch me a spoon".
I pinch.
Also: The majority of almost any type of game is constrained to this kind of action, as it's the most base way of dealing with things. Almost every RPG functions on these fundamental setups in one way or another. It's also the classic plot of almost any fairy tail.
Also: Mario.
Now go fetch me a princess so my strung out butler can direct you to the next castle.
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quixadhal
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#32 id:28460 Posted Jul 8, 2009, 10:55 pm
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*chuckle*
A bit touchy folks? Perhaps I hit closer to a nerve than you'd care to admit?
My statement was not aimed at anyone here specifically (even though my response was to David's response), but at the current and past state of DikuMUD's in general. If you don't *LIKE* the perception that DikuMUD's are seen as lumbering trolls that smack things over the head and do very little else... how about pointing out some exceptions?
I have no doubt there are exceptions, and I expect many of you are the ones who HAVE stepped outside the box and made them. However, just as TinyMU*'s have the reputation of being RP chat-rooms, and LP's have the reputation of being sluggish, so Diku's have the rep of being pure hack-and-slash games.
Sure, my example sucks. I wasn't trying to make a good example, I was trying to come up with non-combat uses for typical combat spells or abilities. Eating may seem menial, but even "heroic" people have to eat if they're still people. Then again, starships don't have bathrooms so....
Anyways, sorry for being a pain in the rear.
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David Haley
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#33 id:28464 Posted Jul 8, 2009, 11:09 pm
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I'm not sure it's terribly helpful to "rub it in" with comments like hitting close to nerves. 
The point isn't to come up with any old example, the point is to come up with interesting examples. If there are no interesting examples, then the point is not made, or at the least, it is made but completely uninteresting. If the only alternative uses for a flame spell are roasting pigs and making campfires, it stands to reason that, really, their main point, as far as interesting gameplay is concerned, is just to kill people.
I actually agree with the idea that there are clever alternative uses for many skills. It's just that, in my opinion, you have done more harm than good with respect to presenting the idea by using bad examples. It means that you are fixing hack-n-slash by introducing cook-n-roast.
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Last edited Jul 8, 2009, 11:09 pm by David Haley
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Chris Bailey
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#34 id:28474 Posted Jul 9, 2009, 12:54 am
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I appreciate your interest HK and as soon as I stop breaking my entire codebase I would love to setup a private test run of various features of my system. I will add you to my list of people to invite and if you are still interested at the time I would love to have you. =)
As far as questing is concerned...I can see where both David Haley and Quixadhal are coming from here. I do agree that the quests found on most muds are boring and offer little motivation(to me) to even complete them. Your typical "go fetch" quest is hardly the captivating, slowly unfolding story that most of us would like to see, but the implementation of such things is very complicated. And even the good ones, as mentioned before, still rely on the same basic idea.
The games I remember as having the most interesting side(and main) quests were the infinity engine games. Baldurs Gate 1/2, Icewind Dale 1/1 and I suppose even Planescape. All of them were a sprawling Epic of an RPG and had a large number of long and complicated quests, filled with an engrossing story and great gameplay. If you stop to consider the basics of each of those quests, they were still "go find this", "talk to this guy". What made the quests really fun in my opinion, is the reward that was offered for their completion. I don't just mean a shiny sword or a lot of exp/gold, I'm talking about something truly rewarding. You got to learn an interesting piece of a larger plot, you got to exact vengeance on a group of people or a person in the game that really irritated you and best of all (for me) you got to start things in motion that altered the course of the entire game.
I don't think we need to redefine the basics of the typical questing system. Go fetch this item works just fine as long as it's properly obscured by more interesting details. What we really need to do is motivate players to embark on and enjoy these quests. I propose we do that by finding the right kind of rewards. In any event, what I am trying to do is implement a system balanced enough to allow for players to really alter the game world that they play in. Through easy to understand but fun to follow quests that more than one person can be involved in. I will admit that I only have one quest outlined as of now and my quest system itself is far from implemented but I will give an example of what I have planned for that one at least.
This quest starts as soon as your character is made and is one of the first things you see after character creation. As a matter of fact, a second purpose of the quest is to teach you a lot about how the game itself works. You start off practically in the middle of nowhere, with little idea of what is going on. Weak, confused and basically unarmed. All that is nearby is a construction crew that is building a road across a large plain inhabited by an ever increasing amount of monsters. They are willing to answer your questions, give you the information you need and help you get to a more civilised area in exchange for you bringing them more of the building materials that they need. These materials are across the plain and difficult for them to get on their own. You escort their caravan across for more materials. Now this seems trivial enough, a basic fetch quests. Along the way however you learn about the combat system, the general feel of the game and several other tidbits important to playing. And as an added bonus(the reward I mentioned before) the crew actually uses these building materials to continue building their road, which will eventually allow access to new parts of the world, in different ways.
That might be another terrible example of a quest, and it really has nothing to do with skills but it's one of the things I find enjoyable in games, and the only thing I have to base a fun game on is what I consider to be fun. Anyhow, I'm done derailing the thread now, so continue. :P
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If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.
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KaVir
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#35 id:28489 Posted Jul 9, 2009, 4:29 am
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quixadhal said:But, I suppose the idea of quests are beyond the thuggish mentality of the Diku community. After all, their idea of a quest is the simple "go kill 10 of vnum 3001" or "go fetch me a spoon".
That's pretty much what all quests are, when you break them down to their fundamental parts - a sequence of 1 or more activites such as "Move X to Y", "Perform action X on target Y", etc. What brings a quest to life is the cosmetic fluff you wrap around it, and those cosmetics are also what differentiates a heroic task from a menial one. Your players light cooking fires, mine burn down populated villages, but the underlying goal is much the same.
Also, I thought you developed a Diku derivative?
quixadhal said:Eating may seem menial, but even "heroic" people have to eat if they're still people.
That doesn't mean it has to be an active part of the game. Eating, drinking, sleeping, defecating, breathing, etc, are all things that people do. But I wouldn't bother adding them unless they add to the actual gameplay. If all they do is force the players to jump through hoops, then that's the point I'd start rethinking the design.
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......................... KaVir at God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
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Chris Bailey
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#36 id:28503 Posted Jul 9, 2009, 7:17 am
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KaVir said:That doesn't mean it has to be an active part of the game. Eating, drinking, sleeping, defecating, breathing, etc, are all things that people do. But I wouldn't bother adding them unless they add to the actual gameplay. If all they do is force the players to jump through hoops, then that's the point I'd start rethinking the design.
I'm with KaVir on this one. I see no point in implementing a feature that doesn't enhance gameplay. Unless eating or drinking is somehow a vital part of the game (and depending on your game, it might be) there is just no point in adding it. As of yet, I've never seen a mud that should have had it, and I've played more than enough.
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If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.
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Hades_Kane
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#37 id:28510 Posted Jul 9, 2009, 9:32 am
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Chris Bailey said:KaVir said:That doesn't mean it has to be an active part of the game. Eating, drinking, sleeping, defecating, breathing, etc, are all things that people do. But I wouldn't bother adding them unless they add to the actual gameplay. If all they do is force the players to jump through hoops, then that's the point I'd start rethinking the design.
I'm with KaVir on this one. I see no point in implementing a feature that doesn't enhance gameplay. Unless eating or drinking is somehow a vital part of the game (and depending on your game, it might be) there is just no point in adding it. As of yet, I've never seen a mud that should have had it, and I've played more than enough.
Ditto.
Eating, drinking, movement points, the need for lights at night in outside rooms... I've done away with all of that. There are a lot of things like that which seemed to be unnecessarily annoying. I can understand some gameplay designs that might make use of movement points, and I can see why some area designs might like to make use of dark rooms, but in the general sense, all of those always seemed to hamper the game than enhance it in my opinion. Besides, its entirely possible for a builder to script needing a light to get through a dark area (and probably make it more interesting in the process) if someone really wants to do that.
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KaVir
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#39 id:28516 Posted Jul 9, 2009, 9:47 am
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KaVir said:Eating, drinking, sleeping, defecating, breathing, etc, are all things that people do. But I wouldn't bother adding them unless they add to the actual gameplay. If all they do is force the players to jump through hoops, then that's the point I'd start rethinking the design.
Just to quickly clarify my stance (in case this thread gets quoted against me at a later date), I'm not against the idea of adding eating, drinking, sleeping, defecating or breathing to muds. What I'm against are the specific implementations that treat these concepts as hoops the player is forced to jump through. If they are implemented in such a way that they actually add to the gameplay rather than detract from it, then I think that's great.
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......................... KaVir at God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
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Hades_Kane
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#41 id:28532 Posted Jul 9, 2009, 1:26 pm
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Orrin said:I may add some enhancing foods in the future, but right now the only thing you can do with food in our game is lace it with poison :)
That's about in line with us :p
Actually, eating does give very small hp boosts... something in the range of like 10-15 hp. Nothing major, but enough to where its not pointless to have food. I've also added in the ability for builders to script what happens when someone eats an object, so we may see more interesting applications for food in the future.
Other things I've done is Vampires can gain hp/mp by drinking the "pools of blood" that remain sometimes after killing an enemy, our Undead race gains a decent hp boost from eating the brains of things they kill, and I think I gave Lycans a little hp boost for eating certain body parts as well as long as they are in Lycan form.
Edited to add:
One thing I found amusing is with our "crazy" flaw, one of the messages you have a chance at seeing once in a while is:
You are Hungry.
You are Thirsty.
I enjoy putting in small easter eggs like that which refer back to stock roots, even if its a nod to something that was annoying :p (We also have a beastly fido roaming one of our main cities)
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......................... -Diablos of End of Time, eotmud.com:4000, Final Fantasy themed -- Seeking Builders! For more info visit: http://www.eotmud.com/
Last edited Jul 9, 2009, 1:27 pm by Hades_Kane
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KaVir
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#42 id:28537 Posted Jul 9, 2009, 2:36 pm
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Orrin said:I think most games these days have moved away from penalties for not eating and drinking and instead offer bonuses in the form of stat enhancing food and drink. Of course if the game is balanced around the assumption that characters will have eaten these foods then it's arguably no different from having a penalty for not eating.
I balance the bonuses with penalties - eating food restores health, but also lowers speed. As a result, most people don't bother eating during combat unless they're desperate, or unless they've designed their character around it (eg a werewolf with Powerful Metabolism and Greater Shark Spirit, who 'eats' bits of his opponents as part of his bite attack).
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......................... KaVir at God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
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Hades_Kane
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#43 id:28546 Posted Jul 9, 2009, 4:11 pm
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KaVir said:(eg a werewolf with Powerful Metabolism and Greater Shark Spirit, who 'eats' bits of his opponents as part of his bite attack).
Hah! That's awesome!
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......................... -Diablos of End of Time, eotmud.com:4000, Final Fantasy themed -- Seeking Builders! For more info visit: http://www.eotmud.com/
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#44 id:28598 Posted Jul 10, 2009, 10:39 am
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I like the idea of keeping the need to eat and drink, adds realism, which is part of the reason i stopped running godwars muds, and switched to rom. Although godwars pk is sweet... Though it is a lot easyer to get a good pbase with godwars than rom, probably due to there being a lot less GW around than roms and the fast maxing and pking. I have a lot of skills/spells but they grow more powerful with levels. Personaly id rather see a huge list of spells/skills when i type prac rather than 40 or less.. .but have each of the fire spells have a secondary effect differant than the other fire spells.Thats probably due to a lot of hours (thousands) playing the Rom Clandestine.
As far as some admins allowing players to practice skills/spells to 100 percent, my GW came stock with prac all, which set all skills/spells to 100. I removed that and made it so you could only prac one at a time and only up to 75 percent with a chance for improvement on usage.. It was resembling a rom more and more until i just switched over..
-Xrak
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Hades_Kane
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#45 id:28601 Posted Jul 10, 2009, 11:28 am
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Xrakisis said:I like the idea of keeping the need to eat and drink, adds realism
Is there any penalty other than just annoying players?
That's the thing, realism isn't necessarily a good thing unless it actually adds something to the game or serves some sort of function.
I understand that the early design of it might have been to help add a money sink, but most games you log into, you can find really cheap means of satisfying the hunger/thirst, from widely available temple fountains that fill you up in both regards, low cost wands of magic mushroom, etc. Almost every game I've seen, the -only- incentive to eat/drink is to keep the annoying tick messages from appearing.
I don't think forcing your characters to engage in certain behaviors just to keep from being annoyed is good game design.
If you are concerned about realism, though, I have some suggestions, because as it is, stock ROM eating/drinking isn't realistic at all. I would suggest adding timers that if the person hasn't drank in a certain number of ticks, they become afflicted with dehydration, which then begins to incur stat penalties. For each tick that they haven't drank after dehydration sets in, the affect compounds making the penalties higher. Once the level of dehydration reaches a certain point, the character is then unable to move or perform many normal MUD actions, until eventually they suffer death. Probably something similar with hunger would be needed, although that could be stretched over a much longer period of time.
On the same note, if the character didn't defecate or urinate frequently enough, there could be a number of things that happen, including dexterity and hitroll penalties, and maybe even a roll for the character to soil themselves, which could then actually stink up the room, deducting their chances for things like sneaking, hiding, being invisible, stealing items, etc. This could even lead to a constipation affect that might could be induced by certain attacks to certain parts of the body or even spell affects, which then would cause the character pain and small amounts of hp damage, incur the "haven't used it recently enough" stat penalties, among other things.
Anything less for an eating/drinking system isn't realism, it's just unnecessary annoyance for a character.
You might also consider making sure a character gets at least an accumulative 4-6 hours a sleep every MUD day, or else they begin to suffer negatives to their mental stats and magic. Sleep deprivation could be another status affect that appears if they haven't slept enough, and again compounds based on how long they go without it. Maybe after about 36-48 hours, the character then has a (high) chance of randomly falling asleep, no matter where they are. Maybe you could even add in stimulants like caffeine or meth that players could ingest in order to help stave off the sleep deprivation affects and lessen their chances of falling asleep, but of course, for the sake of realism you would probably want to consider adding in the chance for addiction and the host of things that entails. This could also pave the way for an insomnia status affect that could be inflicted through certain skills or spells that would cause a character to be unable to sleep and forcibly incur the stat penalties that sleep deprivation entails. If a character does manage to get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep in a comfortable location (a piece of furniture, for example) then you could give them the 'well rested' bonus that would increase their regen rates and maybe give them a slight bonus to their core stats.
So yeah, if you are concerned with realism, these are some suggestions you might consider. Eating and drinking is a necessary part of daily life, and realistically, if you don't do that, bad things happen. Likewise, if you are going to force your players to eat and drink, its very unrealistic to not also force them to expel that which they take in. Sleep is just as much of a necessary, daily part of anyone's life, and if you are going to have your players need to eat/drink for the sake of realism, you should make them have to sleep as well.
Also, in the vein of wanting realism in your fantasy text-based game, you might also consider perma-death, since dying and easily being able to be brought back to life is probably the most unrealistic aspect of most ROM games.
After all, if you are going for realism, and fall short of that, you are just supporting a system that isn't realistic, but that are just hoops you are forcing your players to jump through in order to cut down on unnecessary and annoying spam.
So you have to ask yourself, how committed to realism are you?
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......................... -Diablos of End of Time, eotmud.com:4000, Final Fantasy themed -- Seeking Builders! For more info visit: http://www.eotmud.com/
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