Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post - Web-based character generation?

Traithe · 11-11-2004, 04:12 PM

Hey all,

Recently over on our MUD I've been working on moving more and more interactive/dynamic game content to our website. I just finished implementing a system allowing our staff and player guides to review and edit character applications through a restricted area on the website, and noticed a considerable decrease in turnaround times. Apparently people are much more comfortable with the more 'intuitive' feel of a point-and-click web form than they are doing it over a telnet connection, and they also enjoy not having to monopolize their connection to the MUD to deal with apps; reviewing them in a separate web browser window leaves them free to do other things in the game itself.

So, this got me thinking about character applications/character creation in general. Moving this to the website would require a rather enormous amount of work, since I'd have to essentially replicate a lot of the chargen's hardcode in PHP (if race == elf, skills available == X; else if race == goblin, skills available = Y), or find a clever way to allow it to feed off the MUD's code directly through some sort of database interchange.

Thus, my question: has anyone implemented something like this on their MUDs before? If so, what was the general reaction? Do you think the increased ease for the players was worth all the work necessary to get it running?

I'd especially be interested in hearing from any MUD coders who've implemented this on systems where character applications are required. Most games of these types feature an enormous learning curve, and I suspect the ease of a web form to submit a detailed character application would help lower the "barrier to entry"... but there's just so much work involved here that I'm not willing to make the jump on a total guess. <g>

Anyway, thanks in advance for the feedback.

11-11-2004, 04:12 PM	#1
Traithe Member Join Date: Jan 2003 Name: Kite Posts: 131	Hey all, Recently over on our MUD I've been working on moving more and more interactive/dynamic game content to our website. I just finished implementing a system allowing our staff and player guides to review and edit character applications through a restricted area on the website, and noticed a considerable decrease in turnaround times. Apparently people are much more comfortable with the more 'intuitive' feel of a point-and-click web form than they are doing it over a telnet connection, and they also enjoy not having to monopolize their connection to the MUD to deal with apps; reviewing them in a separate web browser window leaves them free to do other things in the game itself. So, this got me thinking about character applications/character creation in general. Moving this to the website would require a rather enormous amount of work, since I'd have to essentially replicate a lot of the chargen's hardcode in PHP (if race == elf, skills available == X; else if race == goblin, skills available = Y), or find a clever way to allow it to feed off the MUD's code directly through some sort of database interchange. Thus, my question: has anyone implemented something like this on their MUDs before? If so, what was the general reaction? Do you think the increased ease for the players was worth all the work necessary to get it running? I'd especially be interested in hearing from any MUD coders who've implemented this on systems where character applications are required. Most games of these types feature an enormous learning curve, and I suspect the ease of a web form to submit a detailed character application would help lower the "barrier to entry"... but there's just so much work involved here that I'm not willing to make the jump on a total guess. <g> Anyway, thanks in advance for the feedback.