March 1998
- Describe Concept Stephen Zepp
- Describe Concept Jon A. Lambert
- Describe Concept J C Lawrence
- Describe Concept Jon A. Lambert
- Describe Concept J C Lawrence
- Describe Concept Vadim Tkachenko
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part XI: Lexical Scan Revisited Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part XII: Miscellany Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part XIII: Procedures Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! Chris Gray
- VEIL Network Protocol Brandon Gillespie
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part XIV: Types Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part XV: Back to the Future Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part XVI: Unit Construction Jon A. Lambert
- For Ling's FAQ Koster, Raph
- MUD Ratings jlsysinc.ix.netcom.com@ix.netcom.com
- Random Generation Tools Ling
- ANNOUNCE: DB Robin Carey
- THE DARKWHOLE TESTS J C Lawrence
- Magic as Metaphor J C Lawrence
- Magic as Metaphor J C Lawrence
- Magic as Metaphor Jon A. Lambert
- Magic as Metaphor J C Lawrence
- CT - A Hypothetical Session (mid 1995) J C Lawrence
- 2Cyberconf: An article J C Lawrence
- (long) AnarchyMOO Primary Log J C Lawrence
- (short) AnarchyMOO parting salute J C Lawrence
- AnarchyMOO purpose J C Lawrence
- (fwd) CODE RELEASE: [client] Spod! (Java mud client) J C Lawrence
- (fwd) CODE RELEASE: [client]: lyntin (hacker's client) 1.1b Released J C Lawrence
- DarkWhole Test #1 J C Lawrence
- DarkWhole Test #2 J C Lawrence
- DarkWhole test #3 J C Lawrence
- DarkWhole test #4 J C Lawrence
- DarkWhole test #5 J C Lawrence
- DarkWhole test Identity Crisis J C Lawrence
- The Craft of Adventure J C Lawrence
- What in THE Hell was that? Stephen Zepp
- What in THE Hell was that? Ben Greear
- What in THE Hell was that? J C Lawrence
- What in THE Hell was that? Jon A. Lambert
- (fwd) Varying Time Commitment Levels: what's an admin to do? J C Lawrence
- Hello, and a brief intro cimri
- Hello, and a brief intro Ben Greear
- (no title) Time limits? s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- (no title) Time limits? Justin McKinnerney
- (no title) Time limits? J C Lawrence
- Speaking of Avatars Jon A. Lambert
- Speaking of Avatars Jon A. Lambert
- Speaking of Avatars J C Lawrence
- Speaking of Avatars Jon A. Lambert
- Re: Vadim Tkachenko
- META: Broken mail headers coder@ibm.net
- META: Broken mail headers Alex Oren
- META: Broken mail headers J C Lawrence
- META: Broken mail headers Alex Oren
- META: Broken mail headers J C Lawrence
- META: Broken mail headers Chris Gray
- META: Broken mail headers J C Lawrence
- META: Broken mail headers Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- META: Broken mail headers Chris Gray
- Turn-based MU*'s Sauron
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement cimri
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement Justin McKinnerney
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement J C Lawrence
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement Jon A. Lambert
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement Ling
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement Jon A. Lambert
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement Matt Chatterley
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement J C Lawrence
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement Jon A. Lambert
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement Matt Chatterley
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement Adam Wiggins
- Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement Joel Dillon
- SfD: Clientside Caching Nathan F Yospe
- SfD: Clientside Caching Jon A. Lambert
- SfD: Clientside Caching Nathan F Yospe
- SfD: Clientside Caching Chris Gray
- SfD: Clientside Caching Jon A. Lambert
- (subject missing) J C Lawrence
- Balancing Addicts Ling
- Balancing Addicts Richard Woolcock
- Balancing Addicts Ling
- Balancing Addicts J C Lawrence
- Transport layer (UDP vs TCP) Ben Greear
- Transport layer (UDP vs TCP) Niklas Elmqvist
- Transport layer (UDP vs TCP) Jon Leonard
- Transport layer (UDP vs TCP) Ben Greear
- Transport layer (UDP vs TCP) Jon Leonard
- Transport layer (UDP vs TCP) Ben Greear
- Transport layer (UDP vs TCP) Chris Gray
- Transport layer (UDP vs TCP) Niklas Elmqvist
- Transport layer (UDP vs TCP) Jon A. Lambert
- Transport layer (UDP vs TCP) Ben Greear
- Time Limits? Jon A. Lambert
- META: topic and thread culling (was Balancing Addicts -> soft vs. hard enforcement ) J C Lawrence
- (subject missing) J C Lawrence
- XShipWars J C Lawrence
- (fwd) INFO: [client] Chaco looking for new parent for Pueblo J C Lawrence
- SIMULATING FUTURE HISTORIES: THE NAU SOLAR SYSTEM SIMULATION & MARS SETTLEMENT J C Lawrence
- (fwd) Functional Security J C Lawrence
- (fwd) Functional Security Ling
- (fwd) Functional Security Chris Gray
- (fwd) Functional Security Matt Chatterley
- (fwd) Functional Security Miroslav Silovic
- (fwd) Functional Security Felix A. Croes
- (fwd) Functional Security J C Lawrence
- SIMULATING FUTURE HISTORIES s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Character development [was ] Matt Chatterley
- Character development [was ] J C Lawrence
- Character development [was ] Matt Chatterley
- Character development [was ] Travis Casey
- Character development [was ] J C Lawrence
- Character development [was ] Travis S. Casey
- Character development [was ] Marian Griffith
- Character development [was ] Travis S. Casey
- Character development [was ] Vadim Tkachenko
- Character development [was ] Travis Casey
- Character development [was ] Vadim Tkachenko
- Character development [was ] Travis Casey
- Character development [was ] Vadim Tkachenko
- Character development [was ] Marian Griffith
- Character development [was ] Vadim Tkachenko
- Character development [was ] Marian Griffith
- Character development [was ] s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
On Sat, 11 Apr 1998, Marian Griffith wrote:
> On Thu 09 Apr, Travis Casey wrote:
> > On Thursday, 9 April 98, Vadim wrote:
>
> > > Travis S. Casey wrote:
>
> > >> Some paper RPers prefer to develop characters in play rather than
> > >> generating them at the start. The idea is that the player may not
> > >> know enough about the gameworld when the game starts to be able to
> > >> generate exactly the kind of character he/she would want. Thus,
> > >> some aspects of character generation are delayed.
>
> > >> A more concrete example of this is to give the players the ability
> > >> to "hold back" a few attribute/skill/whatever points and assign them
> > >> when they want to.
>
> I think the best solution to this would be to make players decide on
> the aptitude of their characters before they start playing, but other
> than that nothing should be decided. So a player can decide on an ap-
> titude for the arcane. This does not garantuee that their character's
> going to be a mage, much less a strong mage, but when the numbers for
> a character are being determined by the game the ones that have to do
> with magic will be somewhat higher on average than the ones for other
> aptitudes. Of course the player can still end up with a character who
> has no real ability of magic at all, but that's only fair ;) Numbers
> of course have to be fairly immutable and largely hidden from players
> for this to work of course.
All this does is lengthen the time between creation and the player
deciding whether to keep the character or not. I've played on a couple
muds where they put a pretty hefty length of time before you found the
real strength of the character and all it did was irk people. I have come
to the conclusion that if you put numbers in a game, people will play the
numbers, no matter how hard you try to hide them. You may as well just
give them the numbers and let them be happy from the getgo.
For that reason, I am not planning on hiding any numbers, or including any
randomness in the creation process, whatsoever. Note that this in no way
precludes a minimal amount of time spent in creation. How we choose to
split the process up is in no way related to the numbers being visible. :)
The articles posted a few months back about general adventure game design
weighed pretty heavily in the above decisions.
> This should solve the problems associated with roling for the maximal
> stats that can be found on many muds, and also reduce the problem of
> having to make some fairly far reaching decisions about your charac-
> ter before you even start playing.
I don't see how it solves the "rolling endlessly" problem. All it does is
lengthen the amount of time between when the player rolls and when they
find out how the rolls turned out. Removing the rolling entirely is
really the only way to prevent the "endless rolling."
> You just inform the game what kind
> of jobs your character would preferably be good at (or at least some-
> what better than the average). There is no reason why you can not get
> to a different profession during the game. You could choose a higher
> ability at life energies, find out during the game that your charac-
> ter is not going to be a top rank healer and join the warriors guild
> instead to create a fighter character with some extra abilities.
Again, I see no reason to tie rolling stats and minimal creation together.
True, the "aptitude" approach would minimize the chore of creation, but I
see no reason to assume a hidden roll needs to be made anywhere. Just
have the "aptitude" weight the cost of attaining certain skill sets once
in the game.
[...]
> Personally I am not too certain that things like stats ought to able
> to be changed at all. Modified by magical or skills to a certain ex-
> tent is fine, but not permanently. Otherwise you build a mechanism
> into the game that encourages all characters to become identical and
> with similar playing styles
It only encourages all characters to become identical if all parts of the
game require the same skill/stat sets. By making some parts of the game
require strength, and others dexterity (or whatever), you will get a
variety of skill/stat sets, based on what part of the game each player is
currently tackling. Being able to change on the fly allows the player to
optimize their character for the task at hand. If you make both (or all)
of the parts equally as interesting, and equally valid roads to power, I'd
bet that you'll get a wide variety of characters.
[guild stuff snipped...]
-Greg - Character development [was ] Marian Griffith
- Character development [was ] J C Lawrence
- Character development [was ] Cimri
- Character development [was ] J C Lawrence
- Character development [was ] s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Character development [was ] Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Character development [was ] Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Character development [was ] Vadim Tkachenko
- Character development [was ] Ben Greear
- Character development [was ] Matt Chatterley
- Character development [was ] J C Lawrence
- Character development [was ] Matt Chatterley
- Character development [was ] Travis S. Casey
- Character development [was ] J C Lawrence
- Character development [was ] Koster, Raph
- Character development [was ] J C Lawrence
- Character development [was ] Koster, Raph
- Character development [was ] Alex Bertoglio
- Character development [was ] J C Lawrence
- Character development [was ] J C Lawrence
- Character development [was ] John Bertoglio
- 3D engines for MUDs Niklas Elmqvist
- 3D engines for MUDs Chris Gray
- 3D engines for MUDs J C Lawrence
- 3D engines for MUDs Niklas Elmqvist
- 3D engines for MUDs Chris Gray
- 3D engines for MUDs Ling
- 3D engines for MUDs Koster, Raph
- 3D engines for MUDs Mike Sellers
- 3D engines for MUDs Niklas Elmqvist
- 3D engines for MUDs Koster, Raph
- 3D engines for MUDs Ling
- 3D engines for MUDs s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Dynamic Loading of Modules Niklas Elmqvist
- Dynamic Loading of Modules Greg Munt
- Dynamic Loading of Modules J C Lawrence
- Parlez vous NPC? Matt Chatterley
- Parlez vous NPC? Vadim Tkachenko
- Parlez vous NPC? Matt Chatterley
- Parlez vous NPC? Chris Gray
- Parlez vous NPC? Matt Chatterley
- Parlez vous NPC? Nathan F Yospe
- Parlez vous NPC? Matt Chatterley
- Dynamic Loading of Modules Niklas Elmqvist
- Dynamic Loading of Modules Chris Gray
- Dynamic Loading of Modules Jon A. Lambert
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Ben Greear
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Chris Gray
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Jon A. Lambert
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Greg Munt
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Chris Gray
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Matt Chatterley
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Vadim Tkachenko
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Vadim Tkachenko
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Matt Chatterley
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Ben Greear
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Vadim Tkachenko
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Joel Dillon
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Joel Dillon
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Vadim Tkachenko
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Matt Chatterley
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Chris Gray
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Ross Nicoll
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Ross Nicoll
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Matt Chatterley
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Vadim Tkachenko
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Joel Dillon
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Matt Chatterley
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Vadim Tkachenko
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Chris Gray
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Vadim Tkachenko
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Chris Gray
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Jon A. Lambert
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Ben Greear
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Matt Chatterley
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Ben Greear
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Jon A. Lambert
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Joel Dillon
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Matt Chatterley
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Joel Dillon
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Joel Dillon
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Matt Chatterley
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Adam Wiggins
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Ben Greear
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Orion Henry
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Ben Greear
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Nathan F Yospe
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Ben Greear
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Vadim Tkachenko
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Greg Munt
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Ben Greear
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Jon A. Lambert
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? Chris Gray
- World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ?? J C Lawrence
- Jukebox Vadim Tkachenko
- Another recruit for the list? Joel Dillon
- OT: Martin Keegan J C Lawrence
- Old code Joel Dillon
- Old code Michael Hohensee
- UML/Commercial v Free Muds Greg Munt
- UML/Commercial v Free Muds Nathan F Yospe
- UML/Commercial v Free Muds Jon A. Lambert
- Heightfield Terrain Rendering Paper Niklas Elmqvist
- (subject missing) J C Lawrence
- (fwd) Roleplaying J C Lawrence
- (fwd) Roleplaying s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- (fwd) Roleplaying Katrina McClelan
- (fwd) Roleplaying Ling
- (fwd) Roleplaying J C Lawrence
- (fwd) Roleplaying Travis Casey
- Predicting future motion intelligently J C Lawrence
- META: New Mail server and ISP J C Lawrence
- (rec.games.mud.admin) Roleplaying (fwd) Nathan F Yospe
- Persistant storage.... My current idea. Ben Greear
- Persistant storage.... My current idea. Jon A. Lambert
- Persistant storage.... My current idea. Ben Greear
- Persistant storage.... My current idea. J C Lawrence
- Persistant storage.... My current idea. Ben Greear
- Persistant storage.... My current idea. J C Lawrence
- Persistant storage.... My current idea. Ben Greear
- Persistant storage.... My current idea. Chris Gray
- Persistant storage.... My current idea. Ben Greear
- Persistant storage.... My current idea. J C Lawrence
- Persistant storage.... My current idea. Ben Greear
- UML & CORBA Greg Munt
- [MUD-Dev]: smoothing J C Lawrence
- [MUD-Dev]: smoothing J C Lawrence