TMS seems to generate quite a bit of interest and writing in regards to RP muds. As someone who helps administer a " hack n slash " mud, I am curious as to what other like minded folks consider interesting and fun about these sorts of muds. Also, what are some of the features you look for when choosing a HnS?

anonymous

Some of the features I look for in a good HnS game are:

Levels - Classes - Give me immediate gratification for slaughtering hordes of mobs. Don't try and get all fancy with some silly skill tree that eventually creates either carbon copy characters or turns into classes without the names attached.

Enforced IC rules - Nothing ruins the atmosphere quicker than a bunch of whining pansies walking around spouting off "thee and thou".  I don't want to deal with someone trying to act out the emotional state of a depressed elf.

Global Channels - Tells - Having the ability to immediately gloat about killing a powerful mob to the rest of the world, hold private conversations about tactics, or chat with others about the best type of music is great.

Show me Numbers -  I like numbers, don't try and hide them from me and turn things into a guessing game.

Unlimited Deaths - You win some, you lose some.  Keep the bonuses for winning high, and the penalty for losing low.

Screw Realism - I get realism 22 hours a day, make my two hours of escape enjoyable.  Don't bog the game down with unneeded mechanics added for "realism".


Keep the game fresh, make changes when people become set in a pattern.  Have an interesting world that I can explore when I want to, but don't have to read every description just to do something.  Have complex mechanics that are not complex (it makes sense to me...really).

Running a mostly hack'n'slash Mud myself, I go by my own preferences. And judging from those I'd say that diversity is important - and the free choice.

I get bored like heck in a pure RP Mud, where there are no monsters to kill, or you have to have an IC reason to go on a killing spree. Bashing monsters is really good as stress relief at times. And watching people emit 4+ line emote all day long can be tireing.

On the other hand, I get equally bored, if killing monsters is all there is to do. And especially if it is the only way to advance in a mud. Killing can get awfully monotonous after a while.

So we try to set our Mud up in layers. There is a surface layer, where a zone can be played just like some hunting grounds. The important thing on that level is to make the monsters diversified and at least semi-intelligent. They should not just stand there and wait to get killed. They should use different fighting tactics, pursue you when you flee, shield or block attacks, load helpers, or have other defensive tactics to resort to. They should have skills varying with their level and tier, so that newbie mobs are easy, but high level mobs have lots of nasty tricks up their sleeve.

The next level is the 'hidden' parts of the zones, the doors and portals and sercret containers that you need to search a bit for to find, and where some of the goodies are hidden. This needs at least some attention from the players, and the ones that turn brief mode on usually miss the best parts. (You should never FORCE players to read all the room descs, but the ones that do should always be rewarded in some way).

The third level is the Quest option - instead of killing the mobs you talk to them, find out their needs and try to tend to them. For this you get rewarded too, in different ways, and it also gives an extra incentive to explore the mud. To find all the mobs, objects and tricks needed for a successful quest you may have to travel over half the world.

About communication channels, I think they should be simple, and that there should be several choices. I don't really care if it is not logical to be able to 'tell <playername> <message>' even if the player is in another room far off. I once played a semi-RP mud, where the 'tell' problem was handled with the sentence: 'You send a dispatch to <player.name> with the message  <message>'. It may have been logical, but in the long run the extra spam just became irritating. Keep it as short, sweet and simple as possible!

Finally, there should be other choices. If you just want h'n's - fine, but those that want to RP should be able to do so, and there should be options added to facilitate and reward RP, like meeting places, channels, RP groups etc. Those who prefer making a living from a trade or profession instead of killing stuff, should be able to advance their char in that way too. There should also be some games within the game, for those who like a bit of hazard, and if you are lucky that too should be a way to advance.

And ideally players should be able to get as much info they like  from their prompts and score commands - but they should also be able to turn that info off when they don't want to see it - just as they can turn the channles off that they don't want to listen too, or turn off the battlespam messages, if they don't need to see the detailed info about how each hit lands. I hate spam myself, so all ways to reduce it are good to me.

Diversity is the key - and the free choice. If you want it easy, you get it easy. If you want it complicated, there should be a number of extra options to go for. And the learning curve should be as steep or as slow as you choose.

IMO the most important part of a HnS mud is gameplay. An RP mud typically focuses on player interaction, with the game itself providing props to that end - but within a good HnS mud, the gameplay is key, to the point that it should be fun even without players (in this respect I consider Diablo to be a good example of a HnS game). It is possible to have a perfectly good roleplaying mud with very little in the way of coded support - but the same is not true of a HnS. On the flip side, it is possible to have a perfectly good HnS mud without any theme or background story, which is not true of an RP mud. That doesn't mean that an RP mud won't benefit from coded support, or that a HnS mud won't benefit from a well-developed and consistent game world, only that the priorities tend to shift.

Thus for me, the most important part of a HnS is that it should be fun, with plenty of automated activities to keep me occupied. I want a fully playable game which is fun in its own right, where other players improve the experience but aren't required for it.

When I was a high school kid, I liked all the drama involved in mudding.. these days though, it can all go to he||, I get way the he|| more than enough drama in RL and if I wanted more I'd freaking work extra hours.  In h'n's I like being the max level and going and doing very challenging 'runs' which require massive amounts of teamwork, the so-called 'elite mobs', the ones that if you kill, the whole mud buzzes about it and you get filthy wealthy.  But this obviously takes a lot of time, which I dont really have any more, and inevitably leads back into drama, as you have various run teams fighting with eachother, etc......

It is not human nature to be content

P.S. For all you lamers who get your rocks off RPing the Dwarfen Berzerker in love with the Elf Princess who is really a 45 year old fat man, and try to mimic Thibbledorf Pwent every time you open your god-accursed mouth, you can all broil to death in your suit of Victorian armor and then go to he|| and die, thanks

On the occasions when I want to kill some time by messing around on a hack and slash, I want a few things:

1) Interesting races and classes that are well fleshed out. It's frustrating when there's thirty races but half the abilities are "still in development" when you check the helpfile.

2) I don't want to be dependent on other players to get myself leveled. I should be able to find enough newbie areas around the base city to move myself up and start exploring the levels as well as new areas. I shouldn't have to be a long-time player just to be able to get started.

3) No crappy stock areas, with one line descriptions like "A wierd monster is here and he is scarred of you!" I do like some entertaining text. By the same token, the description -should- warn me not to step into that death trap, because dying over and over to the scarred monster is no fun.

4) Although this may sound like it's contradicting #2 - newbie friendly players are nice, but mainly I don't like the places where the higher levels go out of their way to kill newbies or grief them (Dark Castle would be a great example of points 1, 2, and 3, but it's just too frustrating to play there because people constantly mess with you.) But a lot of people findpkill the main allure of a MUD, so opinions will vary there.