July 1999
- ScryMUD release v1.9.10. Ben Greear
- In-game tailors, re-stringers, etc. Eli Stevens {KiZurich/GreySylk}
- In-game tailors, re-stringers, etc. Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- An apology J C Lawrence
- GM Touring Company Ling
- GM Touring Company Matthew Mihaly
- GM Touring Company Ling
- GM Touring Company Matthew Mihaly
- GM Touring Company Christopher Allen - GM Fangs
- GM Touring Company Marian Griffith
- GM Touring Company Alex Oren
- GM Touring Company Christopher Allen
- list of MUD platforms? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- list of MUD platforms? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- list of MUD platforms? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- list of MUD platforms? Ross Nicoll
- list of MUD platforms? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- list of MUD platforms? Christopher Allen
- list of MUD platforms? Ben Greear
- list of MUD platforms? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- list of MUD platforms? Jon A. Lambert
- list of MUD platforms? Ross Nicoll
- list of MUD platforms? Mik Clarke
- ScryMUD 1.9.11 is now on my page and in CVS. Ben Greear
- Technical programming question (circular buffers & logging) Ben Greear
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Willowreed@aol.com
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Ben Greear
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Willowreed@aol.com
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Christopher Allen - GM Fangs
- an idea..wondering if this has been done David Bennett
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Willowreed@aol.com
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Christopher Allen - GM Fangs
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Par Winzell
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Bruce Mitchener, Jr.
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Joey Hess
- an idea..wondering if this has been done bruce@puremagic.com
- an idea..wondering if this has been done Joey Hess
- Victim Characters (was: Critiquing Muds) Eli Stevens {KiZurich/GreySylk}
- pfiles yacketta@kodak.com
- pfiles Richard Woolcock
- bytecode results Chris Gray
- fwd: forum on game design/culture Brandon J. Rickman
- fwd: forum on game design/culture Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Containing automation? Katrina McClelan
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Containing automation? Andru Luvisi
- Containing automation? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Katrina McClelan
- Containing automation? Marc Hernandez
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Marc Hernandez
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Marc Hernandez
- Containing automation? Marian Griffith
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Dan Root
- Containing automation? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Ling
- Containing automation? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Ling
- Containing automation? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Jon A. Lambert
- Containing automation? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- Containing automation? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Containing automation? Jon A. Lambert
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Asmodeus
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Travis S. Casey
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? AR Schleicher
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
Greg Miller wrote:
> Matthew Mihaly wrote:
> > If that command got screwed up by stupidity, then potentailly any feedback
> > from the server is possible. Because of latency, I see no way of the
> > client knowing if the command went through properly or not. It could wait,
> > say, a couple seconds to see if the text it expects in response to eat
> > bloodroot (something about "Your muscles unlock and you can move again"),
> > but that means that the trigger doesn't even know whether to try again for
> > a full 2 seconds, which is a very long time. If it weren't for latency,
> > then the client could simply check the next piece of output it receives
> > after eating the bloodroot, but because of latency, there is no way for it
> > to know if the next output it gets relates to the eating bloodroot or not.
>
> This doesn't really affect clients any worse than humans. Humans don't
> know whether their command worked or not until they receive a response.
That's not the point. Humans can easily categorize all the text they see,
and they know whether it 'belongs' or not. A client doesn't, unless it
contains a database of all the text and what produces it, etc.
>
> [snip]
>
> > bloodroot. Anyone NOT using triggers will not be fooled, because he'll see
> > two messages and only respond to the second one (people can't respond as
> > fast as a computer can).
>
> Most of the time, they won't be fooled. It's easy to screw up though,
> when scanning for relevant messages. It's a pretty good technique,
> though.
Right. Sometimes they'll be fooled. That's their mistake though, so they
should get punished for it.
>
> >
> > I'm not sure how much help this is for defeating triggers in an economic
> > system, but I want to emphasize that it IS possible to create a system
> > that players will _not_ automate. Automating our entire combat system
> > would be far far beyond the scope of 99.9% of our user's capabilities, and
> > not worth the time,effort, and expense for the .1% that might be able to
> > manage it (a custom, very powerful client would have to be written, with
> > fairly sophisticated AI, etc).
>
> I don't see how it would require a custom client. All of the techniques
> you've mentioned can be defeated with combinations of the most basic
> triggering mechanisms--it just takes a lot of them.
That's because I gave very simplistic examples, involving only defensive
manouvers. The idea of someone automating offence is fairly amusing, and
we've never had any reason to try and stop people from automating it, as
the only people who have tried have failed miserably, and predictably. In
any case, if you are convined you are right, then I welcome you to try and
automate combat in Achaea. If you can create an automated character (FULLY
automated) that can beat me (using absolutely no automation) in a fight,
I'll pay you $3000 plus however much you spent on your character.
In any event, creating a system people won't automate is not nearly as
> good as creating one people won't want to automate. People use
> automation for the parts of the game they don't really enjoy all that
> much.
People use automation for two things, in my experience. 1) doing things
they don't like doing due to being repetitive and 2) automating things
that they aren't good enough to do without automation. Our combat system
falls under the second part. Most people can't think quickly enough to
keep up with those who can fight properly, so they get cheesy and use
automation.
>
> >
> > The economic system you described sounds pretty basic, and it doesn't
> > sound as if there is much strategy involved, or much decision-making
> > involved. If you want to stop people from automating it, I think you have
> > to force the users to make decisions based on previous output. If
>
> Another way to say this is that they should have to make decisions based
> on the current state of the game rather than consistently reacting the
> same way to the same outputs.
Yeah, exactly. It can still be automated of course, but it becomes a LOT
harder, if you have a game of any complexity. Well beyond the capabilities
of almost every user, and if done properly, well beyond the feasibility
threshold for every user (though thinking about what Raph said in terms of
large games spawning more software, I'll not rule out that in a game the
size of UO, someone could have a rl economic incentive to make and then
sell this sort of automation to other users).
--matt - Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Adam Wiggins
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Martin C Sweitzer
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Laurel Fan
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Greg Miller
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Charles Hughes
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Katrina McClelan
- Containing automation? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Containing automation? Charles Hughes
- Containing automation? Laurel Fan
- Containing automation? Charles Hughes
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Marian Griffith
- Containing automation? Matthew Mihaly
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- Containing automation? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Containing automation? Marian Griffith
- Containing automation? Wayne Pearson
- Containing automation? AR Schleicher
- Containing automation? Koster, Raph
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #121 - 2 msgs Dr. Cat
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #121 - 2 msgs Koster, Raph
- UO currency Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game design Adam Wiggins
- dispatching events Greg Miller
- dispatching events Mark Gritter
- dispatching events Greg Miller
- injury-based combat Greg Miller
- injury-based combat Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- injury-based combat Brian Carter
- injury-based combat Matthew Mihaly
- injury-based combat Greg Miller
- mud vs. mush membership Matthew Mihaly
- mud vs. mush membership Adam Wiggins
- mud vs. mush membership Greg Miller
- mud vs. mush membership Jay Carlson
- mud vs. mush membership Marian Griffith
- mud vs. mush membership Matthew Mihaly
- mud vs. mush membership Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- mud vs. mush membership Matthew Mihaly
- mud vs. mush membership Bruce Mitchener, Jr.
- mud vs. mush membership Greg Miller
- mud vs. mush membership Adam Wiggins
- mud vs. mush membership Jay Carlson
- mud vs. mush membership Adam Wiggins
- combat/injury Greg Miller
- The Virtual Ecology Tony Wilkinson
- The Virtual Ecology Adam Wiggins
- The Virtual Ecology Jp Calderone
- The Virtual Ecology Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
- The Virtual Ecology Albert
- The Virtual Ecology Schubert, Damion
- The Virtual Ecology Greg Miller
- The Virtual Ecology Brandon J. Rickman
- The Virtual Ecology Tony Wilkinson
- The Virtual Ecology Marian Griffith
- The Virtual Ecology Chris Gray
- The Virtual Ecology Brian Carter
- The Virtual Ecology Par Winzell
- The Virtual Ecology Felix A. Croes
- The Virtual Ecology Chris Turner
- The Virtual Ecology Ling Lo
- The Virtual Ecology Brandon J. Rickman
- [ScryMUD] Splitting development, code re-organization. Ben Greear
- OT: Raph & Kristen absent for a bit Koster, Raph
- Essays on parsing text. Ling
- Essays on parsing text. Christopher Allen
- Essays on parsing text. Travis S. Casey