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Old 11-24-2008, 04:59 PM   #10
Disillusionist
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 83
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Re: When is big too big?

I'm a fan of big, but not at the expense of cookie-cutter rooms.
In my old MUD, the size was 20,000+ rooms, so I'm told, but the traversibility was an issue. For instance, 'go pine' in one direction was 'go trunk' to get back. There was a murkiness on commands, as well, such as 'climb rope' but 'climb hill' would not work. There was a lack of intuitiveness in room-to-room movement, even if each room was unique, at least in the respect that the roomlong wasn't cut-pasted from a dozen other rooms. The only times that room descripts were duplicated was within the parameters of an intentional maze.

On the other hand, well-written rooms in a far-flung region are a welcome relief, especially as it keeps the 'discovery' part of the playing adventure alive, even if there isn't a large enough playerbase to support constant interaction. My first time seeing a new room is usually at least interesting if not openly exciting, and such places are the innate treasures of any mud.

My personal preference is for the stage to be set and set well, and leave the rest up to the roleplayers. Having said that, I enjoy a MUD wherein almost every room has at least one interactive object, even if it's only a bench to sit on, or a lake to point at. At one Simutronics product, there were plenty of rooms, but almost nothing to genuinely interact with. After a time, emoting such things into existence is more tedium than frivolity. Conversely, at another mud, room item limits became a major headache to playability.

Nutshell:
I like huge worlds, at least if they're going to hold my interest for more than a month. I can explore a world in pretty short order if I put my mind to it, so that part at least should take up some serious time.
Caveat: If I see the same room twice in an hour, I do start to question creator creativity.

C.
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