29 Mar, 2013, Orrin wrote in the 41st comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
So, getting rid of room descriptions (including generated "room-like" descriptions for roomless muds)… how do you present the world to the player in a way that's engaging?

One alternative is to echo text to the room that reflects the mood or environment. These could be dynamic and would have the advantage that only players who want to pause and "look around" get to see them and as it's only a single line people are more likely to read them and take notice. I wouldn't do it in every room but it would be a good way to impart extra information when needed.

Another approach might be to have a page on the website dedicated to each zone with a detailed descriptive write-up and maybe some artwork or a map. Players can read it through once and then they have an idea of the zone's look and feel.

I've played muds without ever reading the room descs and it doesn't stop me from imagining the environment as I play.
29 Mar, 2013, Nathan wrote in the 42nd comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
quixadhal said:
So, getting rid of room descriptions (including generated "room-like" descriptions for roomless muds)… how do you present the world to the player in a way that's engaging?

One alternative is to echo text to the room that reflects the mood or environment. These could be dynamic and would have the advantage that only players who want to pause and "look around" get to see them and as it's only a single line people are more likely to read them and take notice. I wouldn't do it in every room but it would be a good way to impart extra information when needed.

Another approach might be to have a page on the website dedicated to each zone with a detailed descriptive write-up and maybe some artwork. Players can read it once and then they have an idea of the zone's look and feel.

I've played muds without ever reading the room descs and it doesn't stop me from imagining the environment as I play.


I disagree with the website approach, since it only works if there no specific details to any room and only gives you a general sense. I think it'd be pretty awesome to have rooms
with traps and secret doors which are implicitly location bound. Perhaps on a mud with very little locational data, it would be okay. Less locational data meaning I could attack anyone in the same and there are absolutely no physical obstacles to doing so which is typical at least in that case.

To be honest, I personally like reading, so it's no great burden for me to read through a 10 line description. I'd prefer to have it there then to have to read it all on a website beforehand. The very first thing is still a problem, as any details specific to a room are a problem. At some level, some spaces are more appropriately represented on a coordinate plane, like a forest full of trees. Maybe in those cases a general description of the space somewhere not in the description and a very brief 1-2 line statement of additional information would be acceptable.



I've yet to see/hear a compelling argument as against having them, and most are in favor of some desscription, so I'm not sure what the benefits, if any, are of NOT having them. What exactly is the benefit of NOT having a room description?
29 Mar, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 43rd comment:
Votes: 0
Nathan said:
I've yet to see/hear a compelling argument as against having them, and most are in favor of some desscription, so I'm not sure what the benefits, if any, are of NOT having them. What exactly is the benefit of NOT having a room description?

Faster to produce content, and uses less memory. The latter is unlikely to be a real concern, although the former might be, particularly if most of your players switch the descriptions off anyway (e.g., if most of your players are using a graphical interface). However you could get the same benefits from auto-generated descriptions.
29 Mar, 2013, Orrin wrote in the 44th comment:
Votes: 0
The main benefit of not having room descriptions is that you don't have to spend time writing them.
29 Mar, 2013, Nathan wrote in the 45th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Nathan said:
I've yet to see/hear a compelling argument as against having them, and most are in favor of some desscription, so I'm not sure what the benefits, if any, are of NOT having them. What exactly is the benefit of NOT having a room description?

Faster to produce content, and uses less memory. The latter is unlikely to be a real concern, although the former might be, particularly if most of your players switch the descriptions off anyway (e.g., if most of your players are using a graphical interface). However you could get the same benefits from auto-generated descriptions.


What is your content and aren't you theoretically producing less content then? I see room descriptions as part of the content in the same way the voice overs in a game like Dungeons and Dragons Online are clearly part of the content. Automatic generators might be okay, but it ought to be easier for most people to write a decent set of room descriptions than for them to code an acceptably good description generator – it's a little better if a good one exists already.

Orrin said:
The main benefit of not having room descriptions is that you don't have to spend time writing them.


Unless your player base hates reading descriptions, I'd call that laziness and not likely to benefit anything
29 Mar, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 46th comment:
Votes: 0
Nathan said:
Orrin said:
The main benefit of not having room descriptions is that you don't have to spend time writing them.


Unless your player base hates reading descriptions, I'd call that laziness and not likely to benefit anything


Nathan, I find that kind of thinking very wrong. Game design, if not approached pragmatically, can easily turn into an endless exercise in futility. If you are writing static room descriptions (or writing code that generates dynamic ones), then you are not doing something else. And if your room descriptions are not as essential to the game as that "something else", then you are not optimizing your resources.

Ideally, before you write a single line, you would already know why you're embarking on another long development chapter. "Because most of my players are not going to hate them" is a poor reason.

Everything that's in a game has to earn its keep. Room descriptions have to do something well beyond set the atmosphere, otherwise the vast majority of people are not going to ever read a line of them, and the rest are going to read them once. Once is not enough. If you spent many hours creating mobs that every player would only get to kill once, would you feel like this was a wise investment of your time?
29 Mar, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 47th comment:
Votes: 0
Nathan said:
What is your content and aren't you theoretically producing less content then?

Content as in areas/zones where you can kill monsters, collect loot, perform quests, solve puzzles, etc. It's faster to produce zones if there are no descriptions.

Nathan said:
I see room descriptions as part of the content in the same way the voice overs in a game like Dungeons and Dragons Online are clearly part of the content.

That's a matter of personal opinion, and depends on the style of game and the target audience. Someone who choses not to include descriptions probably feels differently.

Nathan said:
Automatic generators might be okay, but it ought to be easier for most people to write a decent set of room descriptions than for them to code an acceptably good description generator – it's a little better if a good one exists already.

It's easier to manually write a description, yes. But it's also far, far, far more work - particularly if you want a large world. Realistically speaking, you can probably expect it to take years, and for some muds that's simply not feasible.

Nathan said:
Orrin said:
The main benefit of not having room descriptions is that you don't have to spend time writing them.


Unless your player base hates reading descriptions, I'd call that laziness and not likely to benefit anything

You asked what the benefits are of not having room descriptions, and freeing up time to work on other things is indeed a benefit. Whether you personally think it's worth the benefit isn't really the point. Every mud owner has different priorities.

Do you think builders are lazy if their descriptions are fewer than 20 lines long? Do you think they're lazy if each room has fewer than a dozen "extra" descriptions? Are they lazy if their descriptions are all static, rather than being dynamically tailored to each viewer? Priorities, Nathan. We all have different goals, different visions, different priorities.
30 Mar, 2013, salindor wrote in the 48th comment:
Votes: 0
If I could like your status I would
30 Mar, 2013, Nathan wrote in the 49th comment:
Votes: 0
plamzi said:
Nathan, I find that kind of thinking very wrong. Game design, if not approached pragmatically, can easily turn into an endless exercise in futility. If you are writing static room descriptions (or writing code that generates dynamic ones), then you are not doing something else. And if your room descriptions are not as essential to the game as that "something else", then you are not optimizing your resources.

Ideally, before you write a single line, you would already know why you're embarking on another long development chapter. "Because most of my players are not going to hate them" is a poor reason.

Everything that's in a game has to earn its keep. Room descriptions have to do something well beyond set the atmosphere, otherwise the vast majority of people are not going to ever read a line of them, and the rest are going to read them once. Once is not enough. If you spent many hours creating mobs that every player would only get to kill once, would you feel like this was a wise investment of your time?


I'm simply pointing out that I think there's something wrong with having NO descriptions because it "takes too much time". I could easily argue that writing a MUD at all would qualify as an exercise in futility. I think we can all see the facts to that regard, you'd have to have an awesome game to get even 25-50 players. Like that'll ever happen. Development would be a major long-term thing anyway, a few descriptions won't change that much. As to that last question I would have to experience it personally to answer with certainty.

If people don't read room descriptions maybe they ought to just go a play a roguelike, just maybe? What exactly is a MUD without descriptions?

@KaVir

Quote
You asked what the benefits are of not having room descriptions, and freeing up time to work on other things is indeed a benefit. Whether you personally think it's worth the benefit isn't really the point. Every mud owner has different priorities.

Do you think builders are lazy if their descriptions are fewer than 20 lines long? Do you think they're lazy if each room has fewer than a dozen "extra" descriptions? Are they lazy if their descriptions are all static, rather than being dynamically tailored to each viewer? Priorities, Nathan. We all have different goals, different visions, different priorities.


I just don't think descriptions are so worthless as to be sacrificed merely for more time. I wanted to know what the benefits were, and I don't agree with that being a benefit so long as it does away with them completely. If a useful description is 3 lines that's fine, but I would have zero interest in playing a mud with no descriptions at all. I'm not sure what you mean by "extra", but if you mean including other information, brevity is good. I think it would be lazy to not have any, the matter by which you get them is of less concern. Priorities aside, I'm sharing my thoughts on the matter.
30 Mar, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 50th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
If you dislike reading descriptions, then static descriptions are the worst possible solution.


I think it is a little more complicated. You may like to read them once or twice to get the 'feel' of the place when you explore but don't care after a few time.
In this perticular case, turning them off at will is a good solution.
But you can only 'safely' turn them off if they are "useless' enough in the first place. (or provide a way to only see the useful dynamic info when turned off).

I think there need to be some room descritption at some point be it dynamic or static.
Unless you have a grahical interface. But then I dont call that a "text mud" anymore. It starts to become a graphical game.
Or it becomes a pure arena groundplay.
30 Mar, 2013, Runter wrote in the 51st comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Runter said:
KaVir said:
I think that's the first time I've ever heard someone say they prefer static descriptions.

If you don't want to read them more than once, why would you bother displaying any description at all once the person has read them the first time?

And of course there's a lot of variation among dynamic descriptions. There's no reason why you can't have descriptions that only change based on the viewer - so that each person sees a different description, but the same viewer will always see the same description they did previously. For example my "build" help file, which gives build suggestions based on the viewer's class. That's effectively static, it just means you don't have to read through irrelevant text to get to the useful stuff.


Then I'll be the first to say something that should only be a shocking statement in the mud community. I don't want to spend all my time reading room descriptions. I'd prefer to sample the game mechanics more, read room descriptions less.

Nothing shocking about such a preference, I just don't see how it has anything at all to do with preferring static descriptions. Dynamic descriptions have the potential to be shorter (because you can tailor them to the viewer rather than making them generic) - and if you really dislike reading descriptions, why not just remove them entirely?

If you dislike reading descriptions, then static descriptions are the worst possible solution.


I disagree. How is it the worst possible solution if you can effectively read the static section of the room details only one time and know what it says, and still be able to pay attention to dynamic information in a distinct section? Dynamic information being anything changing, like content and entities in the room. I find the worst possible solution having a block of text that I have to parse every time I enter the same rooms.
30 Mar, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 52nd comment:
Votes: 0
Nathan said:
I just don't think descriptions are so worthless as to be sacrificed merely for more time.

That's fine, but it's still just a personal preference. Time is a finite resource, so you will always have to make sacrifices somewhere.

Nathan said:
I wanted to know what the benefits were, and I don't agree with that being a benefit so long as it does away with them completely.

You don't think that leaving out descriptions will save you time? A decently sized well-written description is likely to take around 30-60 minutes per room on average, when you factor in extra descriptions, descriptions for the monsters and objects, proof-reading, etc. TMC defines a medium sized world as 3000-8000 rooms, so let's average that to a 5500 rooms, requiring around 45 minutes effort each. That gives a rough estimate of around 4125 man-hours to create a medium sized world. If building the mud was a full-time 9 to 5 job, that would take you about 2 years. Worse still, it's the sort of work that burns people out really fast, so realistically speaking you're not just going to be able to sit there day after day, month after month, working solidly on the descriptions.

But even if you could work on it solidly, we're still talking about 2 years of full-time work (and likely a lot longer if this is just a hobby). And if those are dynamic descriptions, then the amount of effort increases further.

Even if you're able to invest that much time and effort, you may decide there are other things you'd rather spend it on. You could shorten the descriptions, or skip the proof-reading, but you're still investing significant time - and the results probably won't be any better than most stock areas. You could just use stock areas, and that's what many muds do, but the areas probably won't fit your theme, and it'll make it more difficult for your mud to stand out from the competition. Or you could generate the descriptions, but that has its own price. Or you could just decide to focus on other things, and instead of a description have a map (like Roguelikes), or even create a graphical interface.

Rarva.Riendf said:
You may like to read them once or twice to get the 'feel' of the place when you explore but don't care after a few time.
In this perticular case, turning them off at will is a good solution.

Sure, but you can do that with dynamic descriptions too.

Runter said:
I find the worst possible solution having a block of text that I have to parse every time I enter the same rooms.

You're describing a specific implementation. There's nothing forcing you to make dynamic descriptions change every time you enter the room - they could simply be fixed for each viewer, so you always see the same thing. The dynamic elements would also make it easier to shorten the description, as you could tailor it to the viewer (including compressing or removing it once they've seen it a few times). Or you could limit the description to cosmetic things that people can ignore, and display the important stuff below it using appropriate colours to highlight its importance (this is what I do) - then you just mentally ignore the uncoloured block of text above the monsters and objects, or switch it off if you prefer.
30 Mar, 2013, Scandum wrote in the 53rd comment:
Votes: 0
Matter of fact is that in 99.99% of the cases a room description is pointless cosmetic fluff. Even on the muds with dynamic description support it's mostly cosmetic fluff that is described, like the weather, because there is nothing of significance to describe. In essence MUD worlds are empty deserts covered with bad prose.

In that regard dynamic descriptions are equally pointless because unless the underlying problem is solved player will still not read them.
30 Mar, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 54th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
Sure, but you can do that with dynamic descriptions too.

Off course, if the dynamic description does not contain any useful info in itself. This 'dynamic' description could also be a auto generated description as well by the way. It is not mutually exclusive.
You can have auto generated "dynamic" description for the wilderness, and static description for areas.

Scandum said:
Matter of fact is that in 99.99% of the cases a room description is pointless cosmetic fluff. Even on the muds with dynamic description support it's mostly cosmetic fluff that is described, like the weather, because there is nothing of significance to describe. In essence MUD worlds are empty deserts covered with bad prose.


Exactly. I personally still prefer bad prose to auto generated prose :) (and from no prose at all (like arenas))
30 Mar, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 55th comment:
Votes: 0
Nathan said:
I'm simply pointing out that I think there's something wrong with having NO descriptions because it "takes too much time". I could easily argue that writing a MUD at all would qualify as an exercise in futility. I think we can all see the facts to that regard, you'd have to have an awesome game to get even 25-50 players. Like that'll ever happen. Development would be a major long-term thing anyway, a few descriptions won't change that much. As to that last question I would have to experience it personally to answer with certainty.

If people don't read room descriptions maybe they ought to just go a play a roguelike, just maybe? What exactly is a MUD without descriptions?


As someone who barely ever read room descriptions in my player days, and who never read a description more than once (if it held a clue, during initial exploration), I would hate to think that somehow the definition of a MUD rests on having them. As someone who is primarily interested in building GUI's for my game server, I also think that a MUD doesn't stop being a MUD if it has a graphical client. Maybe you think it does, but in the end, who cares what it's called as long as people are playing it and having fun?

Just because all of the MUD's I have ever played had some kind of room description, doesn't mean that if I set out to build a new MUD, I wouldn't ask myself why I'm extending development by what could be years. Again, an argument like "building a MUD is an exercise in futility anyway" doesn't strike me as very compelling. I would, instead, be asking myself how to make the best MUD possible, and how to get the most players I can possibly get. Otherwise, I wouldn't be designing a MUD at all.

Only one in a thousand games of any sort will succeed, sure, but you have to design with the goal of being that exception. In the world of MUDs, I think that will almost require you to bend the traditional definition in as many ways as you see fit, otherwise at the end of a very long journey, you will have a game that doesn't stand out among thousands of others (most of which were put up overnight by some dilettante, using some generic codebase). You gotta love yourself more than that! :)
30 Mar, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 56th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
In that regard dynamic descriptions are equally pointless because unless the underlying problem is solved player will still not read them.

Some players may not read them, but they'll certainly notice if they're not there. Cosmetics and attention to detail can make or break a game.

Rarva.Riendf said:
This 'dynamic' description could also be a auto generated description as well by the way. It is not mutually exclusive.

Obviously not, I'm not sure why you'd think otherwise, particularly when I've explicitly compared them side-by-side earlier in the thread.

Rarva.Riendf said:
I personally still prefer bad prose to auto generated prose :)

Really? You actually prefer badly written descriptions over generated descriptions?
30 Mar, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 57th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Rarva.Riendf said:
I personally still prefer bad prose to auto generated prose :)

Really? You actually prefer badly written descriptions over generated descriptions?


Most of the time yes.
Generated description always have the same feel, it becomes dull after a while.
Prose even if bad (and generated prose is rarely 'good' anyway) is at least personal.
You won't have two builders genrating the same one.

And I did not say or think it is one of the other, just a reminder that even if you prefer builder prose, having an engine to generate description allows you do do something like random areas.
30 Mar, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 58th comment:
Votes: 0
Rarva.Riendf said:
KaVir said:
Rarva.Riendf said:
I personally still prefer bad prose to auto generated prose :)

Really? You actually prefer badly written descriptions over generated descriptions?

Most of the time yes.

Well I guess that just goes to emphasise my earlier point - we all have different goals and different priorities. While it's not generally feasible for most mud owners to create an entire world from high-quality hand-written descriptions, there are various compromises that at least make it possible to have a playable environment. Some of us go with stock areas, some implement a system for generating descriptions, some shift the content creation workload to the players, some choose not to have any descriptions, and some even prefer badly written descriptions that can be quickly thrown together without much skill or effort.
30 Mar, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 59th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Rarva.Riendf said:
KaVir said:
Rarva.Riendf said:
I personally still prefer bad prose to auto generated prose :)

Really? You actually prefer badly written descriptions over generated descriptions?

Most of the time yes.

…and some even prefer badly written descriptions that can be quickly thrown together without much skill or effort.


FWIW, I'm with Rarva on this one. But clearly this is all very subjective. If I was single-handedly writing descriptions for an entire world, I would no doubt start with auto-generated ones rather than sit around and wait for a celestial flock of builders with angel wings and Shakespearean talent to descend from the heavens.

But really, I just wanted to point out that you seem to be twisting Rarva's words. Clearly, he means that he prefers well-written to poorly-written static, and prefers poorly-written static to dynamically generated. It's not at all unusual to hold a view like his. For instance, I prefer human-translated to Google-translated text. For me to prefer the Google translation, the human translator would have to be someone who doesn't speak either language :)

I also want to point out that dynamically generated ones can be poorly written, too. Or poorly conceived. Or confusing. Or poorly presented. Or all of the above. So I'm not going to assume that you prefer poorly-written auto-descriptions to brilliant static ones :)
30 Mar, 2013, Lyanic wrote in the 60th comment:
Votes: 0
I see people are falling into the thought trap I pointed out dozens of posts back.

I'll summarize it: It is not safe to assume that "room descriptions" are the primary content of the game, or that they constitute the bulk of the text. It's a really old mentality that needs to die.
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