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Indeed. I meant it as examples. I've seen examples of muds using several different schemes to hide the numbers from the players. The examples I chose were meant to illustrate my point, rather than be ideas for future development.
Some MUDs have a full database of substitutions of a particular number/situation. As far as I can tell, this is for two reasons: to avoid mud clients which can quickly figure out the damage done be able to trigger on the line first time it's used and of course for diversity.
There's not much difference (code-wise) in stating 'You are not hurt, and as far as you can tell you have no ailments', 'hp:Fine, no affections' or even 'hp:120/120, no spells'.
It depends what kind of players you wish to attract. Only a few muds outthere seem to wish to attract prof1515. Perhaps the others are better at dealing with the information they get (ie. ignore what they don't care about/differentiate between character and player knowledge, what have you.).
If one is really annoyed by numbers, one should go to a mud (or mush) that doesn't use them - which it seems that prof1515 has done. I still suggest playing a mush or two, just to try it out. After all, they don't have the game mechanics in the open in the same way.
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