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Old 02-18-2005, 12:09 AM   #1
Jaregarde
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First off, let me say that I've never been involved in the making of a MUD, just in playing one. Now, though, I'm sort of considering making my own MUD, so I'd like to hear some of your opinions on this subject(I'm sorry if I'm repeating another topic but to the best of my ability I couldn't find one).

Well, I'll try and phrase this question as best I can. How do you implement realistic elements without just making them an inconvenience? By 'realistic elements' I mean things like permanent character death and other such things that are generally good for RP but potentially annoying for players. I would especially like to point out 'channels', or other means of player communication without a believable IC justification. I can see how decisions for these things would be tricky considering that roleplaying and convenience are two elements that need to be balanced for a good player experience.

Another thing I've noticed that can cause problems is a system in which killing mobs is the only reliable means of gaining experience and power. I recall in Achaea (the only MUD I play) not too long ago, many adventurers were accused by visitors from another plane of hunting innocent villagers. It was a bit difficult to roleplay since nearly everyone hunted one group of mobs or another. (By the way, I don't mean to accuse you of anything, the_logos) But then again, since I haven't really played any other MUDs for very long at all, I don't know how other systems of advancing in power have worked and whether or not they've been successful.

Well, I hope my question was clear enough, and I'll be grateful to hear the opinions of any of you.
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Old 02-18-2005, 05:25 AM   #2
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I'd suggest a different mindset.  Rather than trying to create realistic features while avoiding making them inconvenient, try thinking up fun and interesting features and then try to design them in a realistic way.

Decide the benefits you want of such a system - what good points is it going to offer?  What does it add to the game?

Then think up the bad points that such a system might have - what aspects of it would detract from the gameplay?

For example, perhaps the main advantage you seek from the permadeath system is the ability for PCs to permanently remove each other from the plots and stories - so the king can't just respawn after being assassinated, for example.  You might then decide that the disadvantage of the typical permandeath system is that the player loses all the work they've put into the game.

Can you remove the character from the storyline without discarding all of the player's work?  Yes - you could allow the player to carry over their efforts to a new character.

Of course some people consider the loss of work to be an advantage, adding to the danger factor.  It really depends on your personal goals and objectives.

What's the advantage of global channels?  They help foster a social atmosphere, are useful for players who get stuck or lost, allow people to ask for help and suggestions, etc.

What's the disadvantage?  It's not realistic for the characters to be able to communicate in such a way?

Can you have global channels without giving the characters an unrealistic means of communication?  Yes - you could tie the channels into the theme (mobile phones, telepathy stones, etc), or base them on account name rather than character name, etc.

The main advantage of having only one path of character progression is that it takes less time to implement and is much easier to balance - that means more time to spend developing other parts of the mud.

Of course the disadvantage is that players are forced to perform a specific action.  The wizard can't become more powerful by studying ancient books, the healer can't improve his arts through complex medical procedures, and the thief can't master his methods through covert operations - they are instead all required to chop up monsters.

One of the more common methods used by RP muds to get around this problem is skill-based advancement, whereby skills improve through use.  Your sword skill improves from using a sword, your medical skill from healing people, your steal skill from sneaking around, and so on.

Note: The off-topic posts have been moved to the Tavern.
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Old 02-18-2005, 07:30 AM   #3
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Old 02-18-2005, 09:45 AM   #4
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Darkskellig - I think that's one of the best posts about permadeath I have read in a long time. It definitely has me thinking of the options I could implement.

Jaregarde, I'll think your question over more, and try and post some ideas as well after I get some sleep. Coming off a 12+ hour shift and I am tiiired!
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Old 02-18-2005, 12:33 PM   #5
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I'm going to sidestep the question of perma death, because I'm a proponant of you die, game over. I don't agree that you invest your time and when the pc dies you lose all your hard work. I mean you can't take that work out of the mud and spend it like money. The only thing you get is the enjoyment of the game. My enjoyment is heightened by the transential and ephemeral preciousness of of life, and the finality of death.

But anyway, the point is there's no way to give everyone exactly what they want. If you compromise too much your product becomes diluted. I think in the question of realism vs. inconvenience the answer should be, what is it I want to create, and what inconvience is necessary to realize that goal. If your audience is people who like perma death, then build to that audience.

Short answer: You can't please everyone.
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Old 02-18-2005, 02:46 PM   #6
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I think it's worth pointing out that the issue isn't realism here. Realism (ie that which is would require removing all magic, dragons, orcs, other races, etc. Rather, the idea is to allow for immersion via internal coherency of design. It may seem like a semantic argument, and I suspect you guys really mean internal coherency rather than realism, but I think it's important to recognize the difference.

I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that unless you're running a MUD whose goal is simulation of something, you want to think up the systems first and then figure out what 'wrapper' to put around them in terms of in-game fiction.

Of course, it's also pretty clear that a lot of players (most probably) don't require anything approaching a perfect degree of internal coherency. For instance, global channels are simply accepted in nearly all the most popular MUDs. I remember running around Paragon City in City of Heroes, reasonably immersed (for a graphical MUD at least) in the world and having no issues with world-wide tells. Didn't impact my playing experience at all and I never heard anyone mention it as an issue.

I suspect that a large part of this is about setting expectations. Many or most MUDers expect to be able to communicate over distances. It's just part of MUDs to them, so there's nothing immersion-breaking to those players about having that feature with no extra explanation involved.

--matt
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Old 02-18-2005, 09:23 PM   #7
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Old 02-19-2005, 07:31 AM   #8
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Within a mud context, "realism" is usually synonymous with internal consistency within the laws of reality for the setting.

I've recently been reading the Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan. In that setting, magicians are able to telepathically communicate with each other, but prefer not to because they can often accidently give away more than they intended, and cannot lie (or be tactful, etc). In addition, it's possible for other people with magical ability to listen in on the conversations, making it a very poor way to communicate secrets.

If such a rule were applied to the example you gave, then I could think of many reasons why the messenger rode back. Perhaps the king refuses mental communication (not wanting to give away secrets), or maybe the messenger needs to bring physical proof that the task is complete (the head of the enemy leader). Maybe there are still enemy magicians in the king's court who might use the opportunity to their advantage, and thus the king wants to have some time to prepare before they find out. Maybe an enemy kingdom is just waiting for one neighbor to defeat the other, so that they can move in and defeat the winner while they're still weak - and the telepathic communcation could tip them off.

If they become something else, then you're basically talking about permadeath with a second chance. The problem with the afterlife is that unless it's really fun, most players will just be annoyed by it - they'll just see it as something that prevents them getting back into the action. On the other hand, if the afterlife is too much fun then players will hang around there and not bother coming back to the world of the living.
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Old 02-19-2005, 11:28 AM   #9
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I like the idea about the undead guy. What if he was raised as a corpse, but he lost a lot of strength and people would be afraid of him. He would have to take to the forests and hunt the other races as an NPC type monster, only more cunning and all because of that brain behind the screen. Now that's the kind of stuff I want to see.
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Old 02-19-2005, 05:51 PM   #10
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The problem with those sort of things is, they require very good RPers who are willing to accept disadvantages for the purpose of good roleplaying.

We recently had an event going on, and one player was complaining because it was "all just for RP"... isn't that sort of the point?
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Old 02-19-2005, 09:49 PM   #11
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I still like killing off player characters the old-fashioned way.  No raising from the dead, no nothing.  That way people will be a little more realistic in their character's behavior.  The same way I wouldn't go charging into a battalion of attacking soldiers because I'm not going to come out alive.
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Old 02-19-2005, 11:26 PM   #12
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This is a great thread, and goo dposts and advice guuys =D I personaly love realistic things in muds, however it does suck to loose hours/days/weeks/etc of work in a character death. And other such things. Muds where you can starve to death, etc are also pretty frustrating fo rthose who can't find food or create food... so I guess fun should always over power realism.
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Old 02-19-2005, 11:55 PM   #13
 
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Now assuming there is no telepathy, he wouldn't use the tell command. He would just as you say ride on to meet the king. Most role-playing games recognize at least two sets of commands. One set is used for interacting with the world (sometimes known as VR or IC commands) and the other set is for not interacting with the world (know as non-VR or OOC commands) Building, coding, note writing, maintenance, OOC communications are non-VR commands.

If you have telepathy or cell phones or whatever in your world then tell is a IC command. If not then tell is an OOC command.

Many role-playing muds mark this distinction in command set either modally or via special characters. Mush and MOOs have the tradition of using an @ in front of the non-VR command. Some cores allow one to switch modes between VR and non-VR such that the @ sign isn't necessary (or to use a different prefix) or some commands only appear in non-VR mode, edit mode, programming mode, building mode, etc.

For example:
VR commands - say sleep whisper
non-VR commands - @score @who @quit

Whoops - forgot to define VR it stands for virtual reality.
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Old 02-20-2005, 09:48 PM   #14
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this is something that has bugged me over a few various realism based arguments around here. Realism is subjective, it is based on the MU World, I play a Wheel of Time MUD, it is not GAME realistic for me to be able to talk over vast distances instantly, but thats very possible in the REAL world. A trolloc is not realistic in the REAL world, but its very very realistic in the game. An automatic 9mm handgun is not game realistic, but it is world realistic, I always like to assume that when people are asking about realism, they are talking game world realism, not real world realism.
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Old 02-21-2005, 02:59 AM   #15
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The key to implementing realistic elements, or really any elements for game play, is to do so in a way that provides the gamer with an inherent benefit.  If you implement an indepth crafting system, you need to give the crafted items worth so that the system gets used and is enjoyed.

One of the main elements of gameplay that are common discussion in muds is Permadeath, because of the nature of MUDs. Being multi-player environments usually with indepth Roleplay considerations I think your best route is to go with a Netherworld set up. Players die and go to the netherworld, they have a chance of being rezzed based upon Spell X, and Action Z.

Perhaps they can also do some semi-automated quests to return to the land of the living, either as a ghost, or as a living being, provided a body is readied for them. Perhaps being dead, they can communicating with those they bonded with via commands in the game. So they can help their relatives with advice from the grave, or some other facet which would add to the roleplay environment.  

Adding in a permadeath system, or like I said, really any system is pointless unless you try to consider the inherent benefits it gives to the player, and to the player environment. If people wanted Realism, they would pick up a butcher knife and go hack at strays. They want a consistent world that gives them inherent benefits for the choices and options they take.

I hope this helps give you a few ideas.

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Old 03-03-2005, 12:02 PM   #16
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Old 03-03-2005, 01:10 PM   #17
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LambdaMOO anyone?
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Old 03-04-2005, 07:17 AM   #18
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I'd suggest looking at it the other way around - you want to create a working economy system, therefore you want food to serve a purpose so that it becomes a valuable resource within that economy.

That doesn't add anything to the gameplay though - it just gives players additional upkeep (and money-drain) to worry about. It also doesn't give any incentive to the crafters to make anything other than the cheapest foodstuff possible, so even from an economic point of view all you're really gaining is one extra resource, and at the expense of annoying the playerbase.

If you want to introduce something like food then why not have it add something useful for the players? You could still leave it as optional (assume 'normal' eating is done in downtime), but allow crafters to create a range of edible products each with different bonuses and drawbacks. This would then create a demand for a range of different food types, and because it would be optional (and have drawbacks as well as bonuses) it wouldn't bother players who weren't interested in eating.

Whether or not a mud is "childish" or "serious grown up" has nothing to do with whether or not the numbers are displayed - and the value of such information really depends on the sort of mud you're developing and the style of gameplay you're trying to promote. Revealing numbers rewards player intelligence and encourages strategic thinking, while concealing those numbers discourages such activity. If you're trying to design a game where combat is discouraged and playing skill is more associated with the character than the player, then hiding such information from the player may be useful, but it won't make your mud any more 'grown up' - any more than making someone play a chess game in which they couldn't see which piece was which.
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Old 03-04-2005, 12:33 PM   #19
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Thats exactly what i been trying to mean. Looks like i failed - happens when i try to write in a foreign language.
The purpose of this is i want to add something that players really need ingame - in current implementations you dont need to gain xp at any given moment - you can do that later anytime. You dont really need money and stuff - you can choose to spend all your gamelife just standing in one room and chatting with bypassers or doing nothing. My opinion is that people do things because they need something, see even Diogenes needed a barrel to provide shelter. One of the things i want to achieve is a motive for players to do things,something to keep things spinning.
Even the cheapest food possible will have the annoying tendency to scram as soon as it realizes your presence - so the hunters will be most involved in food production process. I dont even think ill make cooking into a skill, but there will definitely be reasons to process the food:
catch a fish - youll be able to eat it the day after if you are lucky
hunt a deer - you can smoke or cook the meat an then eat it even a week later if you're not too choosy.
salt and dry the meat - and its not gonna rot away for a long time.
Well if thats true that it is annoying to go obtain or buy some food every few realtime days i should immediately stop what im working on now. But i still hope its not the case. I just can't imagine working economy without real upkeep cost. Maybe im just not imaginative enough, but who's perfect anyway. But i'm almost sure that systems where things come from nowhere (like coins from mob corpses, or free energy to live) will cause problems at some points. Take combat deadlock from the other topic. In the world where fighting uses some form of energy deadlock will never occur, cause at least one of the combatants will eventually get too tired to continue, even if both are dumb enough to not to realize the fight is pointless.
Im not comfortable with that idea, or maybe would the ability to develop further fall in the category 'something useful'?

Last thing about the 'childish' and 'grown up' from my previous post - i was trying to show my distance towards such a stereotypes. I should have enclosed the terms in qotation marks. I failed again, sorry if anybody felt offended, hope to be forgiven.
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