June 1999
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Mark Gritter
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Travis S. Casey
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Travis Casey
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Travis S. Casey
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Jp Calderone
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Travis Casey
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Cynbe ru Taren
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Koster, Raph
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Koster, Raph
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ben Greear
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Jon A. Lambert
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Munt
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Darren Henderson
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Munt
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Miroslav Silovic
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Alex Oren
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Darren Henderson
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) David Bennett
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Darren Henderson
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ross Nicoll
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Koster, Raph
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ross Nicoll
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Jon A. Lambert
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Jon A. Lambert
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Jon A. Lambert
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Koster, Raph
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ben Greear
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Chris Gray
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- IndustrialMUD J C Lawrence
- IndustrialMUD Greg Miller
- Combat (very long) Matthew Mihaly
- Combat (very long) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Combat (very long) Matthew Mihaly
- Combat (very long) Marian Griffith
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Chris Gray
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Chris Gray
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Adam Wiggins
- thoughts Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Marian Griffith
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Marian Griffith
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Adam Wiggins
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Greg Miller
- Game Economies Ross Nicoll
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Jo Dillon
- Game Economies Ross Nicoll
- Game Economies Marian Griffith
- Game Economies Jo Dillon
- Game Economies Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Marian Griffith
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Jo Dillon
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Jo Dillon
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Greg Munt
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Jon A. Lambert
- Game Economies Shawn Halpenny
- Game Economies Brandon J. Rickman
- Game Economies Jon A. Lambert
- Game Economies Shane King
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies Nathan F Yospe
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies Brandon J. Rickman
- Game Economies Marian Griffith
- Game Economies Katrina McClelan
- Game Economies Adam Wiggins
- Game Economies Katrina McClelan
- Game Economies Albert
- Game Economies Jp Calderone
- Game Economies Laurel Fan
- Game Economies Albert
- Game Economies Charles Hughes
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Mik Clarke
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Ling
- Game Economies Ling
- Game Economies Mik Clarke
- Rooms Greg Munt
- Parsing Text Output Jon A. Lambert
- Parsing Text Output Chris Gray
- MUD-Dev request rejected Greg Miller
- Interface/Custom Clients Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)y Mark Gritter
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)y Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Greg Munt
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Matthew Mihaly
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Koster, Raph
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Ross Nicoll
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Richard Bartle
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or againsteach other? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Christopher Allen
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Richard Bartle
- CVS repository for ScryMUD is online at scry.wanfear.com Ben Greear
- Mihaly's Combat Greg Munt
- Mihaly's Combat Matthew Mihaly
- Looking for UML David95037@aol.com
- Looking for UML Greg Munt
- Looking for UML David95037@aol.com
- Slogans (Game Economies) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Slogans (Game Economies) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- A couple Qs, and thanks Ben Greear
- Understanding and "should-ness" Matthew Mihaly
- Understanding and "should-ness" Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Personalities J C Lawrence
- realism Matthew Mihaly
- Gender and Mud Development Nathan F Yospe
- Gender and Mud Development Greg Miller
- Gender and Mud Development Katrina McClelan
- Gender and Mud Development Jon A. Lambert
- Gender and Mud Development Matthew Mihaly
- Gender and Mud Development Jon A. Lambert
- Gender and Mud Development Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Gender and Mud Development David Holz
- Gender and Mud Development Jon A. Lambert
- Gender and Mud Development Matthew Mihaly
- Gender and Mud Development Greg Miller
- Gender and Mud Development J C Lawrence
- Gender and Mud Development Koster, Raph
- Gender and Mud Development J C Lawrence
- Gender and Mud Development Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Gender and Mud Development J C Lawrence
- Gender and Mud Development Koster, Raph
- Gender and Mud Development Greg Munt
- Gender and Mud Development Greg Miller
- Gender and Mud Development Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Gender and Mud Development Marian Griffith
- Gender and Mud Development Matthew Mihaly
- Gender and Mud Development Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Gender and Mud Development Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Gender and Mud Development Adam Wiggins
- Gender and Mud Development Travis S. Casey
- Gender and Mud Development Marian Griffith
- Newbies (was Text Parsing) John Hopson
- Newbies (was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Average play time? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Average play time? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Average play time? Koster, Raph
- {OT} Gender and Mud Development Wendy Winkler
- AOL lawsuit (was text parsing) Koster, Raph
- Sexual archetypes claw@kanga.nu
- Systems and concepts Caliban Tiresias Darklock
On 02:58 PM 6/8/99 -0700, I personally witnessed Matthew Mihaly jumping up
to say:
>
>Our
>combat system is a _system_. A change in it ripples through the whole
>system. Without understanding the system, you cannot hope to make
>reasonable suggestions regarding it.
Good point. I think I mentioned here once that I decided having to roll for
a hit *and* damage in AD&D struck me as being in the way of the combat
round process. So I decided to combine them into a single die roll. That
created a need to change armor classes in order to simplify the math. That
created a need to change the way to-hit rolls were calculated. That created
a need to change the way damage was applied. That created a need to modify
the damage done by each and every weapon and spell in the game. Simple
change... big work. Took over a year to get it working well in play. Takes
about a month of weekly gaming sessions to get someone used to it.
Worth it? Well, gee, I don't know. Probably not. It *does* speed combat
when everyone knows it, but whenever you get a new player your combat slows
down immensely for the next month while you get him acclimated. Do I think
my system's "better"? Well... um... not really. All things considered, it's
just window dressing. I like to pretend it's a faster better more effective
system, but really I'm just proud of it because it's mine. ;)
>I don't post suggestions, for
>instance, to Caliban as to how to improve his combat system, because I
>don't have any real understanding of it.
Primarily because there is no system. It's very zen... "when you look for
it, you cannot find it." ;)
Combat in UU is simplistic. It all comes down to one number you whack up
against another number, and the bigger number wins. There's a slight skew
in the numbers from a random number generator, but nothing worth worrying
about. You can buy bonuses to your own number, and penalties to your
opponent's number, but in the end it's basically a case of... umm... well,
basically, "mine's bigger than yours". (Damn, I'm on a roll tonight.)
Instant combat is a neat idea. I like it better than protracted combat,
because it lowers the most prominent level of waste I see on MUDs: time. I
like games where a quick mind and fast reactions are more effective than
just having lots of time. I like games that actively save me time. Anything
that makes it possible for me to do more on the game in less time is Good.
The concept I've been holding in mind is to make the game interesting for a
certain period of time, but boring beyond that period of time. UU gets a
little tedious after an hour or two. Currently, it has a configurable time
limit of up to four hours and a configurable limit on logins per day. I've
been debating whether to remove this; it used to be there primarily because
only one person could be logged in at once, and because the game operated
on time-limited BBS accounts. Both of these have now gone away, but I'm not
certain what the totality of effect will be upon removing the time limits.
It's under examination. I'd *like* them to go away entirely. There are,
however, certain issues involved there.
And, of course, the help system has some trouble. If you've looked at it,
you know why: it uses ANSI carriage control and VT52 emulation to simulate
a menued interface. This is just plain not going to work for the guy on raw
telnet.
And while this wouldn't really be appropriate for UU, something I've been
thinking about for a little while to help newbies out without insulting
experienced players is a sort of MUD proficiency test. What I was thinking
along the lines of would be a multiple choice thing that starts with
questions like "What command should you use to get help with other
commands?", expecting the answer "help", and then proceeds to deeply
philosophical questions like "Which of these items is not necessary to
acquire the key to Castle Krak?", expecting the answer "Colonel Mustard in
the study with the wrench". (No, wait, that would be too obvious. You'd
need a better answer for that. But it illustrates a further point: you can
make the quiz entertaining enough that people won't mind taking it.)
Basically, you start out your game with a fifty-question quiz. Players may
quit the quiz at any time, but can never retake it with the same character.
Divide the questions into levels: start with basic information for 1000 XP,
then more advanced information for 10,000 XP, then environment-specific
information for 100,000 XP, and then really minute trivial things for a
million. Have a selection of a couple hundred questions for each category,
and randomly select (shuffle) the ones any given player gets asked.
After he answers ten questions and doesn't quit, start watching his
average. If it drops below fifty percent, terminate the quiz. When a player
answers ten questions correctly, he moves to the next level of questions.
So as long as he gets five out of the first ten right, he can continue the
quiz -- but as soon as his rate of success drops below 50% he gets tossed
out. Nope, you're through. You're out of your depth now, so it's time to
move on. Obviously, if you get 25 questions right, you get to finish the
whole thing.
In the end, a perfect score would net you 21 million XP, and the worst
possible score (missing all ten questions or just quitting immediately)
would net you 0. In any case, it's a win-win situation. Especially if you
tell the player what the right answer is after each question. If the player
does badly, he learns something. If he does well, he gets handed some XP to
help him avoid the tedium of the lower levels.
I'm divided on the idea of announcing results. Should they go into the
player's public record? Should they be announced once to the MUD? Should
you keep a "top ten" file? Or should they just be thrown away? Or is this
just a really stupid idea?
-----
| Caliban Tiresias Darklock caliban@darklock.com
| Darklock Communications http://www.darklock.com/
| U L T I M A T E U N I V E R S E I S N O T D E A D
| 774577496C6C6E457645727355626D4974H -ÊBAL::3146=- - Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Katrina McClelan
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Koster, Raph
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Greg Miller
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) J C Lawrence
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Jon A. Lambert
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Kristen Koster
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Greg Miller
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Kristen Koster
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Jon A. Lambert
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Kristen Koster
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Marian Griffith
- Tactical Combat and Traps (was the gender thread) Katrina McClelan
- Game construction and a big mistake Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game construction and a big mistake Marc Bowden
- Game construction and a big mistake Greg Miller
- Game construction and a big mistake Matthew Mihaly
- Game construction and a big mistake Willowreed@aol.com
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Koster, Raph
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) claw@kanga.nu
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Marc Bowden
- Client-Server vs. Peer-to-Peer -- Implementing DIS on the Internet claw@kanga.nu
- Goals and directions (was the gender thing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #93 - 27 msgs Dr. Cat
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #93 - 27 msgs Greg Miller
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #93 - 27 msgs Koster, Raph
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #93 - 27 msgs Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Gender and Mud Development (drifting off topic again) S. Patrick Gallaty
- Laws of Online World Design (was: realism) Koster, Raph
- Game construction and a big mistake Koster, Raph
- memory and speed Matthew Mihaly
- memory and speed Adam Wiggins
- memory and speed J C Lawrence
- memory and speed J C Lawrence
- memory and speed Matthew Mihaly
- memory and speed Adam Wiggins
- memory and speed Chris Gray
- memory and speed Miroslav Silovic
- memory and speed Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- memory and speed Mark Gritter
- memory and speed Ben Greear
- memory and speed Matthew Mihaly
- memory and speed S. Patrick Gallaty
- memory and speed Adam Wiggins
- memory and speed Brad Leach
- memory and speed Petri Virkkula
- Virtual worlds based on real world history Greg Munt
- Stockmarkets... Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Games within Games Jesse Farinacci
- ADMIN: Posting authority J C Lawrence
- thoughts on game economies Travis S. Casey
- thoughts on game economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- thoughts on game economies Travis Casey
- thoughts on game economies Koster, Raph
- thoughts on game economies Travis S. Casey
- thoughts on game economies Koster, Raph
- thoughts on game economies Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- thoughts on game economies Jo Dillon
- thoughts on game economies Greg Miller
- thoughts on game economies Matthew Mihaly
- thoughts on game economies Greg Miller
- thoughts on game economies Matthew Mihaly
- thoughts on game economies Jeremy Music "Sterling"
- thoughts on game economies Robert Brady
- thoughts on game economies Ling
- thoughts on game economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- thoughts on game economies Alex Oren
- thoughts on game economies Albert
- thoughts on game economies Adam Wiggins
- thoughts on game economies Travis S. Casey
- thoughts on game economies Travis S. Casey
- memory and speed Matthew Mihaly
- memory and speed Shawn Halpenny
- Game economics Matthew Mihaly
- Game economics Nathan F Yospe
- Playing the monsters David95037@aol.com
- Playing the monsters Katrina McClelan
- Playing the monsters Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- How to debug a method taking a variable list of arguments? Ben Greear
- Twisted Reality claw@kanga.nu
- ADMIN: Searching on MUD-Dev archives claw@kanga.nu
- Object Obsolescence [ WAS: thoughts on game economies ] Shawn Halpenny
- SAR Adam Wiggins
- speed problems update Matthew Mihaly
- speed problems update Quzah [softhome]
- ADMIN: NoMail Subscriptions -- please reconfigure J C Lawrence
- Fwd: Books on Compilers Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- UM2 Greg Munt
- 3D Anarchy Adam Wiggins
- Properties of computer languages Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Properties of computer languages Jon Leonard
- Properties of computer languages Mark Gritter
- Properties of computer languages Cynbe ru Taren
- Properties of computer languages Travis S. Casey
- Properties of computer languages David95037@aol.com
- Properties of computer languages Travis S. Casey
- Properties of computer languages Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Properties of computer languages Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Properties of computer languages Joey Hess
- Properties of computer languages Chris Gray
- Properties of computer languages David95037@aol.com
- Properties of computer languages Adam Wiggins
- Properties of computer languages Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Properties of computer languages Mik Clarke
- Different approaches? Dani Dumitrescu
- Different approaches? Koster, Raph
- i got's a question for yall on the best way to do something.. PartyG2816@aol.com
- i got's a question for yall on the best way to do something.. Marc Hernandez
- i got's a question for yall on the best way to do something.. Jim Clark
- i got's a question for yall on the best way to do something.. PartyG2816@aol.com
- i got's a question for yall on the best way to do something.. PartyG2816@aol.com
- Game Design [Simulation] Justin Lockshaw
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #105 - 12 msgs Dr. Cat
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #105 - 12 msgs Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #105 - 12 msgs Chris Gray
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #105 - 12 msgs Mik Clarke
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #105 - 12 msgs Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- A little off topic - anyone receiving multiple copies of list mail? Charles Hughes
- Role playing and Multiple Goals John Bertoglio
- Critiquing Muds Marian Griffith
- Critiquing Muds Koster, Raph
- Critiquing Muds Travis Casey
- Critiquing Muds Marian Griffith
- Critiquing Muds Travis Casey
- Critiquing Muds Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Critiquing Muds Marian Griffith
- Critiquing Muds Jon A. Lambert
- Critiquing Muds Koster, Raph
- Critiquing Muds Matthew Mihaly
- Critiquing Muds Koster, Raph
- Critiquing Muds Damion Schubert
- Critiquing Muds Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Critiquing Muds Michael Willey
- Critiquing Muds Jon A. Lambert
- MUD-Dev: An apology J C Lawrence