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Old 03-14-2008, 06:12 PM   #10
Jazuela
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: New England
Posts: 849
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

1. Permdeath - agreed, no qualifications, other than there might be instances in which a character would get resurrected - such as in the case of bug abuse by the character's killer or a game-side error.

2. Description-based: I feel that "well-described" and "good background" should be replaced with "a staff-approved description and background fitting with the game's IC history and setting." "Well" and "good" are just a bit too subjective, and getting too deep into proper punctuation and grammar and sentence structure could cause the #2 guideline to go on for pages and pages
3. Account based: I would personally simplify this: RPIs are one character per account, with one account allowed per player at any given moment.
4. No levels - just leave it like that: No levels.
5. Extensive, player controlled emote system - Players may create open-ended, custom emotes and have commands to help create these emotes. Stock emotes are either nonexistent or inconsequential (added that last bit, because sometimes brevity is best, such as "nod" or "smile.").
6. Slower Paced World: I'm not sure about the wording of this. I understand the intention, but saying "slower" is comparative. Slower than what? And how slow is too slow? And "should" have a crafting system - I've seen some crafting systems that are so complex that they detract from RP rather than add to it. No idea how to fix it but I think this point needs to be worked on.
7. Items are descripion based: I would say items must all have descriptions. Not be description-based, because that would make them part of a mush, not an RPI. Items in RPIs for the most part have coded functions. Unless they intentionally don't (such as "a huge boulder that you can't climb and just sits there doing nothing but we wanted it there for you to look at).
8. Immersive code: I would simply say: The code must support the roleplay, rather than the roleplay managing to exist despite or around the code.
9. Mechanics Based World: Agreed.
10. No visible "experience" points; obviously code in all games is numeric by nature, everything is boolean if you get down to it. But players in an RPI have no need to see the number of points required before they get a boost to this or that skill. Once again it goes to the code supporting the RP rather than the RP existing despite the code.
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