Re: [MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.)

[coder#ibm,net]

On 21/11/97 at 04:34 PM, "Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com> said:
>On 21 Nov 97 at 8:52, Miroslav Silovic wrote:
>> Ola Fosheim Gr°stad <olag#ifi,uio.no> writes:

>The example of "Habitat" leads me to think graphics is certainly  doable
>and at low-bandwidth.  When it ran on Quantumlink, it only  used 170K
>clientside storage and the average end-user was at  1200-2400 baud.  The
>quality of these graphics may have a negative impact on your theme.  I
>would think the simple cartoon-like graphics would be less than suitable
>for a WOD theme than a more light-hearted theme.

Agreed -- I've had the same observation.

However its worth noting that even as simple a graphical presentation as
Habitat's automatically gives a sense of space and relative positioning to
characters in a room.  This can significantly affect activities assumed to
be range sensitive, such as combat.

>This seems to be the biggest area of difficulty.  I wish to avoid the
>arcade-like quality to combat (fastest reflexes win), add a more 
>thoughtful approach (cf. JCL's combat scripts), yet preserve a sense of
>urgency (a time limit on decisions) without imposing excessive lag on
>players.

<nod>

For the technical reasons noted afore I'm moving away from combat scripts
(they just don't work any more), and trying to move to a more losely paced
clocked system.  I don't have much of a design yet, but I'm almost tempted
to something of a tick based system where players define generic
intentions (I want to try and do XXX action) which the system then
periodically evaluates for opportunity and then executes when possible. 
Actions would then be defined as either ongoing on one-off's within this
structure.  (This is somewhat inspired by reports on Wiggin's system).  

What I don't like about this is that it does not allow any decent level of
complexity or careful fore-planning, and seems too close to the DIKU-style
type-kill-and-wait-and-see-who-wins.  I also don't like moving to a
clocked system as it fairly well forces me to move the entire game to a
clocked system, which I'm resistant to.  I'm still much won over with
letting everything execute as quickly as it can.

<ponder>

-- 
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw#null,net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder#ibm,net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...