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Will · 01-29-2013, 10:25 AM

Interesting. My almost 30 years of MUD experience has consisted nearly exclusively of pay games, including Gemstone III, Legends of Futures Past and Inferno. The only one of the three not built on a custom platform is Inferno, and it was built on a highly modified version of LambdaMOO. As a result, I have little to no frame of reference for discussing most of the MUD codebases which have become most popular.

Having read your post, though, I believe we actually use multiple descs and do a lot of the same things done with multiple descriptions that other games do. We just don't call them all "descriptions" or do all the same things the same ways. For example, our "names" are really the "short descriptions" used in other games. We go with actual character names instead of short descriptions because I prefer it philosophically. But our naming mechanics allow us to structure "names" as "short descriptions" if we want or need to. That's what we do with MOBs and automated NPCs, as well as some characters in disguise (who appear in the game to be just more automated NPCs).

We do the same thing. We just handle it dynamically in the "look" command, which checks the pertinent object properties and displays the appropriate "long_descr." Could you describe how long "long_descr" is used for MOBs?

Our "description" is the Diku "description."

We work with players to come up with what we call "custom descriptions," four 90-character lines which become a large part of what you see when you actively "look" at a character. The "look" verb also shows body position, clothing, and injuries, tattoos, scars, etc, if clothing isn't covering them up. Players can't change their "descriptions" themselves.

I think a lot of what we do is just an outgrowth of the fact that everything in the game is an object, and we can manipulate object properties however we want. So we customize object (character) names, prepositions, prefixing adjectives and postfixes instead of adding multiple description properties.

This is very cool. I have to think about possibly doing something like it myself.

Completely unrelated: Does anyone know when "crafting" first appered in MUDs?

01-29-2013, 10:25 AM	#10
Will Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 90	Re: PC physical descriptions Interesting. My almost 30 years of MUD experience has consisted nearly exclusively of pay games, including Gemstone III, Legends of Futures Past and Inferno. The only one of the three not built on a custom platform is Inferno, and it was built on a highly modified version of LambdaMOO. As a result, I have little to no frame of reference for discussing most of the MUD codebases which have become most popular. Having read your post, though, I believe we actually use multiple descs and do a lot of the same things done with multiple descriptions that other games do. We just don't call them all "descriptions" or do all the same things the same ways. For example, our "names" are really the "short descriptions" used in other games. We go with actual character names instead of short descriptions because I prefer it philosophically. But our naming mechanics allow us to structure "names" as "short descriptions" if we want or need to. That's what we do with MOBs and automated NPCs, as well as some characters in disguise (who appear in the game to be just more automated NPCs). We do the same thing. We just handle it dynamically in the "look" command, which checks the pertinent object properties and displays the appropriate "long_descr." Could you describe how long "long_descr" is used for MOBs? Our "description" is the Diku "description." We work with players to come up with what we call "custom descriptions," four 90-character lines which become a large part of what you see when you actively "look" at a character. The "look" verb also shows body position, clothing, and injuries, tattoos, scars, etc, if clothing isn't covering them up. Players can't change their "descriptions" themselves. I think a lot of what we do is just an outgrowth of the fact that everything in the game is an object, and we can manipulate object properties however we want. So we customize object (character) names, prepositions, prefixing adjectives and postfixes instead of adding multiple description properties. This is very cool. I have to think about possibly doing something like it myself. Completely unrelated: Does anyone know when "crafting" first appered in MUDs?