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Molly · 11-14-2004, 05:13 PM

Auseklis: Nov. 13 2004,20:10
[quote]I think part of the problem with those sorts of ideas (although they're good in principle) is that they really need to be there throughout the Mud to work. If you've got a 10,000 room mud and only have one room in which you need to 'descend cliff', then players are going to either throw tantrums that you 'tricked' them or else just use the down exit without realising there's another way. Same goes for tastes and smells etc, they need to be uniformly on everything which (as I've just found out in Lusternia) is a #### of a lot of work if they're not there already.[quote]

I don’t agree with this. The main thing - as many posters have already pointed out in this thread - is that you need some really solid hints in the main descs about what to do. If the room desc mentions ‘a gnarled old tree’ and ‘look tree’ produces some info like ‘the branches grow all the way down to the ground, which makes this tree easy to climb’ it shouldn’t really matter if it is the only climbable tree in the mud.

And you have to start somewhere. Sure, it is a lot of work, but Builders who take pride in their work shouldn’t let themselves be stopped by that – nor by deficiencies in the code. Most of the tricks we use could also be done with command scripts, but of course it is a lot better if you can set them in OLC. It is a pretty easy addition, which can be added ‘on top’ of the existing code, so that the old zones still will work. In a Mud where Builders are respected for their work, the Coders usually listen to their ideas and implement the tools they need on demand.

All it took for me was a casual remark to the Coder; ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if…’ and the day after I had my extra features. We already had a pretty large world with over 7,000 rooms at that time, and several of the oldest zones are still not up to our present standards. But all the new zones have them, and whenever we update one of these old zones, we also add the listen/smell/taste descs. Up till then you just get a generic message like; ‘You hear nothing special.’ when you type LISTEN in a room.

The first time I used the new features, I made a ‘Tourist Brochure’ for the pioneer zone, to alert the players of the addition. It read something like:

---------------------
‘Welcome to Fenizia, the City of Light – and Darkness!
To get along in this city you need to be very cautious. You have to use all your senses. Don't eat anything without first smelling and tasting it. Don't enter unknown territory without first listening. And if you are looking for something hidden, it might not be enough to just look in the room. You may have to look behind, under and above things.
Expect to find hidden doors and secret passages. You might even have to climb the rooftops to find out the deepest secrets of this city. And while you are exploring - watch your back!
Remember that this is the City of the Poison and the Dagger. Or the old saying "See Fenizia and then die!" might take on a new and more sinister meaning.’
---------------------------

Since then our players have become so used to our extra features that they even whine about not finding them in other Muds they play. Some players will whine about anything, hehe…

Anyhow, here is my 3-dimensional trick – the ‘unreachable’ object. It’s nothing fancy, but the illusion looks nice, and it might inspire some players to look a bit closer at things in a room in the future. Since Jazuela started out with forests, I’ll stick to that in the example too. You could probably make better descs, the ones below I made on the fly, just to illustrate the trick.

You need 3 rooms and 4 objects for it. The first room might look like this:

In A Dense Forest
The forest is very dense here, the trees growing so close to one another that their crowns form a canopy overhead that almost completely blocks out the sun. Many of the trees are ancient, with gnarled trunks and twisted branches. Because of the deep shade the ground vegetation is sparse and straggly. A strange object protrudes from the canopy above; it looks almost like the blade of a sword.

Looking at the sword gives a description of just the blade, since the rest is hidden in the foliage. You can ID it with a Scroll of Identification, but the command ‘get sword’ produces the message ‘It is out of your reach’. (This is done with a script with a GET trigger, because it looks better than the usual ‘You can’t take that!’ on an object without a TAKE flag.)

At this stage the average player might move on, possibly after filing a bug report about ‘the sloppy builder forgot to set the take flag on the sword in this room’. Most players in our mud would however try to ‘climb tree’. This would work fine, since there actually is a climbable tree in the room, although it’s flagged !display, (which is how we usually set these things up, to avoid them being too obvious).

So next you find yourself in the crown of the tree, and the room desc mentions ‘What looks like the hilt of the sword can be discerned among the foliage a bit out on the branch to the east’. Again you can ID it, and this time ‘look sword’ gives a description of just the hilt, while ‘get sword’ again produces the message ‘It is out of your reach’.

If you go east, you’ll just fall to the ground and hurt yourself a bit, and again a few players might give up here, but the majority would probably try to ‘enter branch’, which again will work fine. The branch is not a portal, however, which of course would have worked too. Instead there’s a command script with the argument ‘enter branch’ set on the tree-crown room, to create a bit extra fun. So entering the branch will have about 30% rate of success, otherwise you slip and fall to the ground, twisting an ankle or something. Sooner or later however you’ll get out on the branch and finally be able to grab the sword.

This could be the end of a mini-quest, where you just end up with a fairly decent sword. But it could also be the start of a Quest to find the real owner of the sword. Clues to the ownership could be a name engraved in the hilt, an inscription on the trunk of the tree, or some story told in the nearest city Tavern… Or you could simply try to find a wandering knight with an empty scabbard. There are lots of possibilities.

11-14-2004, 05:13 PM	#60
Molly Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Sweden Home MUD: 4 Dimensions Posts: 574	Auseklis: Nov. 13 2004,20:10 [quote]I think part of the problem with those sorts of ideas (although they're good in principle) is that they really need to be there throughout the Mud to work. If you've got a 10,000 room mud and only have one room in which you need to 'descend cliff', then players are going to either throw tantrums that you 'tricked' them or else just use the down exit without realising there's another way. Same goes for tastes and smells etc, they need to be uniformly on everything which (as I've just found out in Lusternia) is a #### of a lot of work if they're not there already.[quote] I don’t agree with this. The main thing - as many posters have already pointed out in this thread - is that you need some really solid hints in the main descs about what to do. If the room desc mentions ‘a gnarled old tree’ and ‘look tree’ produces some info like ‘the branches grow all the way down to the ground, which makes this tree easy to climb’ it shouldn’t really matter if it is the only climbable tree in the mud. And you have to start somewhere. Sure, it is a lot of work, but Builders who take pride in their work shouldn’t let themselves be stopped by that – nor by deficiencies in the code. Most of the tricks we use could also be done with command scripts, but of course it is a lot better if you can set them in OLC. It is a pretty easy addition, which can be added ‘on top’ of the existing code, so that the old zones still will work. In a Mud where Builders are respected for their work, the Coders usually listen to their ideas and implement the tools they need on demand. All it took for me was a casual remark to the Coder; ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if…’ and the day after I had my extra features. We already had a pretty large world with over 7,000 rooms at that time, and several of the oldest zones are still not up to our present standards. But all the new zones have them, and whenever we update one of these old zones, we also add the listen/smell/taste descs. Up till then you just get a generic message like; ‘You hear nothing special.’ when you type LISTEN in a room. The first time I used the new features, I made a ‘Tourist Brochure’ for the pioneer zone, to alert the players of the addition. It read something like: --------------------- ‘Welcome to Fenizia, the City of Light – and Darkness! To get along in this city you need to be very cautious. You have to use all your senses. Don't eat anything without first smelling and tasting it. Don't enter unknown territory without first listening. And if you are looking for something hidden, it might not be enough to just look in the room. You may have to look behind, under and above things. Expect to find hidden doors and secret passages. You might even have to climb the rooftops to find out the deepest secrets of this city. And while you are exploring - watch your back! Remember that this is the City of the Poison and the Dagger. Or the old saying "See Fenizia and then die!" might take on a new and more sinister meaning.’ --------------------------- Since then our players have become so used to our extra features that they even whine about not finding them in other Muds they play. Some players will whine about anything, hehe… Anyhow, here is my 3-dimensional trick – the ‘unreachable’ object. It’s nothing fancy, but the illusion looks nice, and it might inspire some players to look a bit closer at things in a room in the future. Since Jazuela started out with forests, I’ll stick to that in the example too. You could probably make better descs, the ones below I made on the fly, just to illustrate the trick. You need 3 rooms and 4 objects for it. The first room might look like this: In A Dense Forest The forest is very dense here, the trees growing so close to one another that their crowns form a canopy overhead that almost completely blocks out the sun. Many of the trees are ancient, with gnarled trunks and twisted branches. Because of the deep shade the ground vegetation is sparse and straggly. A strange object protrudes from the canopy above; it looks almost like the blade of a sword. Looking at the sword gives a description of just the blade, since the rest is hidden in the foliage. You can ID it with a Scroll of Identification, but the command ‘get sword’ produces the message ‘It is out of your reach’. (This is done with a script with a GET trigger, because it looks better than the usual ‘You can’t take that!’ on an object without a TAKE flag.) At this stage the average player might move on, possibly after filing a bug report about ‘the sloppy builder forgot to set the take flag on the sword in this room’. Most players in our mud would however try to ‘climb tree’. This would work fine, since there actually is a climbable tree in the room, although it’s flagged !display, (which is how we usually set these things up, to avoid them being too obvious). So next you find yourself in the crown of the tree, and the room desc mentions ‘What looks like the hilt of the sword can be discerned among the foliage a bit out on the branch to the east’. Again you can ID it, and this time ‘look sword’ gives a description of just the hilt, while ‘get sword’ again produces the message ‘It is out of your reach’. If you go east, you’ll just fall to the ground and hurt yourself a bit, and again a few players might give up here, but the majority would probably try to ‘enter branch’, which again will work fine. The branch is not a portal, however, which of course would have worked too. Instead there’s a command script with the argument ‘enter branch’ set on the tree-crown room, to create a bit extra fun. So entering the branch will have about 30% rate of success, otherwise you slip and fall to the ground, twisting an ankle or something. Sooner or later however you’ll get out on the branch and finally be able to grab the sword. This could be the end of a mini-quest, where you just end up with a fairly decent sword. But it could also be the start of a Quest to find the real owner of the sword. Clues to the ownership could be a name engraved in the hilt, an inscription on the trunk of the tree, or some story told in the nearest city Tavern… Or you could simply try to find a wandering knight with an empty scabbard. There are lots of possibilities.