OK, so I have been on a roguelike kick now for a little bit and it got me thinking; are room descriptions necessary? Now, I realize there is a difference between rogue's and mud's, but given the popularity of rogue's (ADOM had been out of development for almost a decade and the owner managed to raise $90k to get it going again), are they on to something with not having descriptions? Could good room names (Forest of Arandor vs. Forest) be a better solution?
I personally like room descriptions, because they are more immersive than a grid of symbols. The roguelike approach works well for games that are a quick dungeon crawl with no real rpg aspect at all. Also, they are critical if there any elements in the room that you can interact with (i.e. you need to be told about them for a specific room). How else do you know whether there is anything on the ground? It might be possible to make a roguelike a little more like a mud – where certain things are done to alleviate the difference, such as:
- auto-loot with some way to define what you want to keep (tells you what you picked up) and either a quick statement about what you didn't pick up as a hint on the names so you can shuffle inventory if you want to. - more descriptive room names (as you suggested) - markers for traps (if you have traps and a way for players to detect them) - a "tileset" where two characters/colors represent the same kind of "tile" but one is used when there is light and the other when there isn't any. (for systems that use lighting)
I'm assuming you show some kind of world representation because just room names would be pretty dull.
If you are going to do that and strip out descriptions, a more descriptive name for the place seems wise. You really have to find some way to tell the player where they are and clue them in about what kind of space it is. A forest or swamp can be more dangerous than an open plain.
* I am biased in this matter, since I don't really like the way rogue-like games play and was born into a period where that was never the only choice. That said I have played one or two such games, for a little while.
I think most players don't read the descriptions after seeing them the first time, and probably only skim them the first time anyway. They do give that 'mud feel' though so a lot of players probably would complain if they were missing or radically shortened.
I don't think room descriptions are necessary and I know of at least one well known mud that has them disabled by default for new players. Well written descriptions can help immerse you in an area or give clues for puzzles, monsters, death traps etc. but it's content that is only ever consumed once (if at all!) so I'd put them as "nice to have" rather than a necessity if I were creating a new game. I'd also rather see a short dynamic description than a longer static one.
I am genuinely curious and am not trying to argue room descriptors as being superior or inferior…especially since I have read many posts that suggest great work to remove them.
I simply haven't played that style of text based game and curious what kinds of innovations are used in that style you can't get from a graphics game
Maybe I am simply reading too much into it and nostalgia is its own reward and there isn't anything beyond that.
It's no problem. One thought I had from it is that it would make it "easier" (using the term loosely) for builders to get on-boarded. Another is a possible way to draw in players who are more familiar with roguelike's and give them a "multi-player variant".
Depends on the game theme / genre / atmosphere. In a more RP / detailed quest oriented game room descriptions are essential not only to immersion but to even knowing what is going on. UOSSMUD is a good example of this. The game only has a set, fixed amount of quests (that grant permanent exp TNL reductions) and strict penalties for any known sharing of quest info. Many of the quests require a good amount of attention to detail; reading rooms for clues and piecing together things as you go along.
In any pure PVP mud I've played room descriptions are set to off and never looked at once; barring some bonus content / areas to be run for gear or special items to get an advantage over other players.
Please pardon my ignorance, but I am curious once you get rid of room descriptors why keep it text based?
Or another way of asking the question is what advantage do you get in that style game by keeping things text based?
I've seen this argument come up before, and it's always based on the same assumption, that "room descriptions" constitute the bulk of the text for a MU*. It's a rather oldschool philosophy, and one that doesn't hold true for many types of games - particularly those that have eschewed the room-based paradigm or are heavily combat oriented. A fine example that fits both of the aforementioned categories is God Wars II. Yes, there are "room descriptions" (I use this term very loosely, since it is a coordinate based world) there, but they are dynamically generated. They're also not the bulk of the text in the game. That would come from the combat, which again includes many dynamically generated messages based on hundreds, if not thousands, of variables.
As for advantages to keeping things text based, three come to mind: 1) More efficient generation of new content, 2) Visually impaired players and 3) Some people just suck at graphics.
Also RP with text arguably is 'better' than RP with graphics.
I don't really see a strong comparison with roguelikes here; certainly the RL message log is similar to text in muds but the main interface is not that similar (unless you want to get really abstract and talk about how players create belief in what they're experiencing).
Thats probably a really important question you have to ask yourself. If your gameplay doesn't fit with your descriptions, you might be sending the wrong singles. However, if you were for instance, to go into End of Time, and turn off room descriptions, you'd quickly learn why you should have them on. They have quite skillfully made the room descriptions a part of the game play experience.
26 Mar, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 16th comment:
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As many players I read descritption once, to get the sense of direction of the area. It is entirely different to remember north then to remember there is a street with 3 shops on both side. Once I remember the area good enough I turn off the descritpions. If there were no descritpion I would probably take a longer time to memorize an area, or would just use maps. Also some description show some hidden exits (like a hole in the ground, or some ladder on a wall)
26 Mar, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 17th comment:
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Then there are games that actually have dynamic content, so memorizing the descriptions only helps in a general sense. But sure, if the content doesn't change, once you've seen it a few times it probably won't matter if it's there or not.
One strategy that would work fairly well would be to provide a verbose description the first couple of times you visit a room, and a terse one after that. Not quite as short as the typical title, but not more than a line or two either. Rather than making it a boolean, let the user specify a number of visits.
Tracking rooms visited is useful for other things too.. exploration experience, and statistic gathering to see what areas are popular and actually get traffic.
I really appreciate the question and the responses. I didn't realize how important I considered room descs to this genre (for me) until after reading the posts.
I am thinking about implementing a similar system but instead of times visited make change based on quest checkpoints. Like for example if in your story line a dragon comes and decimates the town then the room desc could be updated to reflect this.
If pursuing this the next natural question come should exits be opened (or closed) in a similar fashion? My intuition says this is a bad idea for a multiplayer game. Maybe only opened but never closed?
26 Mar, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 19th comment:
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Then there are games that actually have dynamic content, so memorizing the descriptions only helps in a general sense. But sure, if the content doesn't change, once you've seen it a few times it probably won't matter if it's there or not.
Well even the dynamic contents is usually triggered, so once you learnt than pushing this brick will open a passage in another wall always at the same place, you don't need to read it either. Some content maybe random related, but unless it affects you, not very useful to read it as well (the lights were dimmed, yeah well, I always have light on, who cares). Really depends on the kind of game you are providing. If it is heavy on fighting, where you fight is more or less irrelevant except for a few info (exits avalaible, kind of terrains if it can affect your fight) If it is an immersive/exploration game though with lots of stuff only happening once un a while in the four thursday week, it is another matter.
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Tracking rooms visited is useful for other things too.. exploration experience
Yep very useful. I do not give exp but I do give a map and run command that only show/go through the rooms you visited.
I think by dynamic content quix didn't mean interactive things, but as a contrast to static descriptions. So for example someone in the room before you set everything on fire. When you enter with the description off and start whittling a fishing pole, you suddenly wonder why your cloak of +1000 shock resistance suddenly is halfway burnt and now a +500 cloak.
Just wondering what others think.