[obit]

The other thread seemed to be drifting away from the OP's topic a bit, but this exchange interested me very much because I have noticed exactly the same trend in another manual-combat system MUD. I'm starting a new thread and steering this in a slightly different direction though.

Manual Combat Systems vs. Automated,

How favorably each is received by new players, and what kind of player tends to lean towards which system.



Automated Combat- the Diku-style spammy scrolling variety(maybe not necessarily spammy):

It seems that the games with this style of combat are by far the most popular.

Is it because of the simplicity of it? Basically, typing "Attack Mouse", and watching what happens, more or less "rooting for" your character while it does the dirty work.

The ease new players will find in winning battles almost right away?(By that, I mean, "You have Brutally SMASHED a tiny grey mouse into oblivion!!", followed by "You gained a level!")

Or is it the familiarity that (most)new players already have with this combat system? I suppose that new players don't want to feel like they're "just another n00b" when they start playing a new game. While they still need to figure out the zones, the spells, classes, politics ect of the community, they are confident that they already know "how" to learn and play the game.



Manual Combat- your char does nothing(in combat) unless told to do so, for every instance of an action, ie "punch <target>" or "fire weapon":

Thing about these systems, is that it seems only a handfull of games employ them. They(the combat systems) are generally unique to a one-off MUD, and therefore completely alien to any new player. I think that this is the major drawback to Manual Combat systems. Most of the new players that check out these games, probably came from MU*s with the above-mentioned, automatic combat systems, so give up fairly quickly when they compare their immediate level of success in combat, to that of the diku-variety.

The need for decent, player-created or player-designated aliases/macros and triggers might also be a turn-off, as it only makes the learning curve sharper. I can definitely see how someone completely new to Mudding, might accept the learning process as the natural course of the game, where someone accustomed to a more standard(dikuish- sigh, I promise I'm not bashing diku. I'm actually a semi-reg at a diku based mud) setup, would become frustrated and quickly abandon the effort to learn.


After I get some rest, I'll try to flesh these thoughts out a bit further, and maybe look at "hybrid" systems as well.

-obit