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

["Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com>]

On 10 Dec 97 at 21:32, coder#ibm,net wrote:
> 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.
>

Yes. 2D with a few simple calculations of linear angles and object sizes
adds enough perspective to fool the human eye and be processed easily
and accurately.
The 'realistic' and significantly more complex 3D stuff is really overkill
and likely adds quite a bit of development time and skill, especially in
regards to artistic resources.  Which is problematic if you have problems
drawing a convincing stick-man like myself. :)

> >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.
>

I'm leaning toward a time-limited turn-based system, where the user selects
options for the next attack in a windowed box that contains check-boxes
and radio buttons.  The user may be in newbie mode where default attack and
defense options are pre-selected for them or they may choose to be in
expert-mode where the last turns options are pre-selected.  In either
mode they may overridden.  In addition I would like to give the user the
ability to create and save attack sequences.  These could be picked at the
commencement of combat and would appear as the default options each turn
of combat which again may be overridden.

I am tied to a strongly graphical client.  This especially makes sense in
regard to the pacing and many options within combat activity.  Lengthy
typing and literal script programming are things I wish to stay away from.
Another benefit is to store all these user preferences client side in
addition to character info and inventory info.  This allows a quite a bit
of intelligent pre-editting of server input.  For example, the typo
problems of 'shoit arraw atorc', magically disappear when one does a click
on the weapon in hand (bow) on the character window, selects the ammunition
from the drop down list and then drags the pointer over to the orc word in
the client window.

Note: The spoofing and cheating aspect of this are fairly easily groked
and I suspect will be rare phenom within the scope of an RP-only
environment.

--
Jon A. Lambert
"Everything that deceives may be said to enchant" - Plato