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Burr · 10-03-2002, 11:46 AM

Could we do for descriptions what Whitney did for machinery?

1) Every creature is essentially composed of a set of parts from a predictable, larger set: abdomen, neck, head, arms, legs, wings, horns, hair, hands, tail, etc. An amorphous blob could at least be said to have a body. A walking tree could be said to have legs (roots), arms (branches), abdomen and maybe a head (face). A snake has a head, neck, abdomen, and tail. Mud creators have already developed this concept somewhat by distributing damage to particular parts of the body rather than to the body as a whole.

2) Descriptions are easier to follow if they follow some sort of logical progression (often from most obvious to least obvious and, related to that, from top to bottom). This progression is also fairly predictable. It generally goes from part of the body to part of the body, starting with the head and descending, often with the addition of an indicator of general size and/or color near the beginning and a conclusive statement of how the character looks overall near the end.

What I'm thinking, then, is that instead of taking you to a blank editor, the "description" command could take you to a series of description editors for each body part, one by one in the predicted order, with the option of skipping those parts that are uninteresting. Parts that a particular character can't have would be automatically removed from the series, since they will have already chosen their race and whatnot.

The most widly applicable benefit of this is that it would likely improve the quality of the average description in the game. A series of questions will encourage a more detailed description than a single question. Furthermore, the standardized progression will make it easier to quickly figure out what a character. True, it would slightly restrict the freedom of your better description writers, but only in terms the progression. And if they are so creative, they should be able to work around that much.

Also, a player could 'look eyes Timaki' or 'examin arm Gwendolyn' to get specific information, rather than rereading an entire description. For those creative description writers, you might even allow them to create longer versions of each body part description for when the part is examined closely.

But the most interesting benefit, IMO, is that you could have interchangeable body parts that maintain an individualized description. You could look at the severed arm on the ground and see something other than "A severed arm lies here in the dirt." A knowledgeable player could possibly tell WHOSE arm it is, or at least what race of creature it came from. With the help of a good healer and some shady dealings, a player could possibly buy himself some wings or new arm to replace his severed one or whatever. Rather than simply raising zombies as is, necromancers could build them to their own aesthetic or mechanical specifications. This would also make coding more flexible for shapeshifter, transmuter, and (some) psionicist classes. Rather than 'shift wolf' a shapeshifter could 'shift wolf head'. Rather than spending 50 mana to reinforce their entire body's cells, a psionicist could use 30 in total mana to concentrate on their head, abdomen, and arms.

Anyhow, I've seen some muds that ask multiple-choice questions about eye and hair color. And I've mentioned muds that distribute damage to particular body parts. So I wonder if maybe they were originally thinking along the same thoughts as I but ran into problems or something.

10-03-2002, 11:46 AM	#1
Burr Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 123	Could we do for descriptions what Whitney did for machinery? 1) Every creature is essentially composed of a set of parts from a predictable, larger set: abdomen, neck, head, arms, legs, wings, horns, hair, hands, tail, etc. An amorphous blob could at least be said to have a body. A walking tree could be said to have legs (roots), arms (branches), abdomen and maybe a head (face). A snake has a head, neck, abdomen, and tail. Mud creators have already developed this concept somewhat by distributing damage to particular parts of the body rather than to the body as a whole. 2) Descriptions are easier to follow if they follow some sort of logical progression (often from most obvious to least obvious and, related to that, from top to bottom). This progression is also fairly predictable. It generally goes from part of the body to part of the body, starting with the head and descending, often with the addition of an indicator of general size and/or color near the beginning and a conclusive statement of how the character looks overall near the end. What I'm thinking, then, is that instead of taking you to a blank editor, the "description" command could take you to a series of description editors for each body part, one by one in the predicted order, with the option of skipping those parts that are uninteresting. Parts that a particular character can't have would be automatically removed from the series, since they will have already chosen their race and whatnot. The most widly applicable benefit of this is that it would likely improve the quality of the average description in the game. A series of questions will encourage a more detailed description than a single question. Furthermore, the standardized progression will make it easier to quickly figure out what a character. True, it would slightly restrict the freedom of your better description writers, but only in terms the progression. And if they are so creative, they should be able to work around that much. Also, a player could 'look eyes Timaki' or 'examin arm Gwendolyn' to get specific information, rather than rereading an entire description. For those creative description writers, you might even allow them to create longer versions of each body part description for when the part is examined closely. But the most interesting benefit, IMO, is that you could have interchangeable body parts that maintain an individualized description. You could look at the severed arm on the ground and see something other than "A severed arm lies here in the dirt." A knowledgeable player could possibly tell WHOSE arm it is, or at least what race of creature it came from. With the help of a good healer and some shady dealings, a player could possibly buy himself some wings or new arm to replace his severed one or whatever. Rather than simply raising zombies as is, necromancers could build them to their own aesthetic or mechanical specifications. This would also make coding more flexible for shapeshifter, transmuter, and (some) psionicist classes. Rather than 'shift wolf' a shapeshifter could 'shift wolf head'. Rather than spending 50 mana to reinforce their entire body's cells, a psionicist could use 30 in total mana to concentrate on their head, abdomen, and arms. Anyhow, I've seen some muds that ask multiple-choice questions about eye and hair color. And I've mentioned muds that distribute damage to particular body parts. So I wonder if maybe they were originally thinking along the same thoughts as I but ran into problems or something.