October 2000
- Interactive Fiction Competition 2000 Aaron Mitchell
- trade skill idea msew
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea msew
- trade skill idea Travis Casey
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Zak Jarvis
- trade skill idea John Buehler
- trade skill idea Dave Rickey
- trade skill idea Zak Jarvis
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Mordengaard
- trade skill idea Richard Tew
- trade skill idea Val Trullinger
- trade skill idea Phillip Lenhardt
- trade skill idea John Buehler
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea msew
- trade skill idea Wes Connell
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea Brad Wyble
- trade skill idea Vincent Archer
- trade skill idea Jeff Freeman
- trade skill idea Corey Crawford
- trade skill idea Yves K
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Tamzen Cannoy
- trade skill idea Robert Zubek
- trade skill idea Patrick Dughi
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea Brian 'Psychochild' Green
- trade skill idea msew
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
On Sat, 7 Oct 2000, Batir wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster@verant.com>
> To: <mud-dev@kanga.nu>
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2000 12:43 AM
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] trade skill idea
>
> > I would never in a million years be able to convince my aunt JoAnne in
> Ohio
> > to try to save the world from amonster invasion on a computer. In fact, I
> > don't think I could convince any of my relatives to. But I am pretty sure
> I
> > can convince them to build rollercoasters and houses and yes, to bake
> bread.
> >
> > -Raph
>
> Err, maybe I missed something in these games, but how many of the mud's out
> there actually let someone "save the world"? Has there ever been a dynamic
> event in any of them in which one of the possible outcomes was shutting down
> the server, game over?
I'm pretty sure that Raph meant 'saving the world' metaphorically. In the
(crappy) movie Independence Day, they "save the world" from aliens. Would
the aliens actually have completely destroyed the world? Didn't look like
it.
> In UO, I have two chars, who, between them, can make every single item
> available for crafting, and make them at the highest possible level. Is
> this realistic? No. Is it fun? Yes. Does the fun balance out the
> surrealism? I think not, which is why I hardly play anymore, despite my
> friends begging (and by the way, I went to the trade skills after getting
> bored with combat).
EBAY 'em!
> You want more depth to the trade skills, add more. Add interrelated skills,
> just as you do for combat. Let my "Frying" skill add a little to my
> "Baking" skill. Let outside influences interfere. Give a little more
> control. Oven too hot? Gee, no wonder I burned the food. No wood in the
> stove? Gee, this is taking long to cook...
This just requires you to do more pre-determined things. It doesn't change
the trade skill "problem" at all. Look, cooking, for instance, is a rote
exercise. You do the exact same thing, you end up with the exact same
result (providing your ingredients are identical, etc). What makes a great
chef irl is innovative recipes that taste good. Pretty tough to replicate
that in a game (although I should mentioned that I once designed a
vineyard system for a mud that generated random tasting notes for the wine
when finished, based on grape type, and quality of the wine (which was ,
in turn, based on a slew of factors such as temperature, soil type, how
much rain they got, how long the grapes were allowed to stay on the vine,
how long the wine was aged for and in what type of cask, etc etc)).
The point, really, is that skill in real trade skills is _very_ difficult
to replicate in a game, because they tend to involve creativity and
subjective sensual (as in using the senses) judgements. For instance, it'd
be quite difficult to replicate the experience of Alice Waters jaunting on
down to the Berkeley farmer's market to buy the freshest veggies for that
day's cooking at Chez Panisse. It's not like there are signs on the wall
saying "THESE VEGGIES FRESHEST!" (or maybe there are, but such signs are
to be ignored as nothing more than hype). She's gotta smell them, and
touch them, etc.
When it comes time to actual cooking, there are recipes that one follows.
You know what temperature you need the oven set to in order to make bread.
You know how long to cook it, and so on. The parts of cooking that involve
skill on the parts of a chef are not parts that can be replicated
virtually very well at this point.
> If you want to stop money farms, stop them. Why do NPC's buy thousands of
> weapons that they don't use, don't resell, and basically just get deleted?
> Why code that into your game?
Because players want it. As was explained at, I think, the GDC lecture on
"The In-game economics of UO" at last march's GDC, UO didn't always do
this, and it pissed off the players. The players would produce swords, try
to sell them to an NPC, and get quite pissed that the NPCs didn't want
them. The expectation was that "We do work, and now we want money for it."
Players don't care much about macro issues like whether there are "too
many" longswords in the land. They just want to sell the sword they made
and get money for it.
--matt - trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea msew
- trade skill idea Batir
- trade skill idea Arabis2000@aol.com
- Open Source 3D Interactive World Server Ian Macintosh
- Reactive keyboard J C Lawrence
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #243 - 14 msgs Dr. Cat
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Ananda Dawnsinger
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Madman Across the Water
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? sverre@munthe.net
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Jeff Freeman
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Matthew Mihaly
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Marc Bowden
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Ananda Dawnsinger
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Zak Jarvis
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Madman Across the Water
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Vincent Archer
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Dave Rickey
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Ananda Dawnsinger
- Mud / Web Integeration Lee Hulbert
- Mud / Web Integeration Wes Connell
- Mud / Web Integeration Bruce
- Mud / Web Integeration Bruce
- Mud / Web Integeration KevinL
- Mud / Web Integeration msew
- Mud / Web Integeration msew
- Mud / Web Integeration Richard Tew
- Mud / Web Integeration Nathan F. Yospe
- Declaration of the Rights of Avatars sverre@munthe.net
- Declaration of the Rights of Avatars Matthew Mihaly
- Declaration of the Rights of Avatars Justin Rogers
- Declaration of the Rights of Avatars Andy
- OT: Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Brian 'Psychochild' Green
- OT: Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Ananda Dawnsinger
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- Alternate Means of EQUAL Enjoyment (formerly trade skill idea) Geoffrey MacDougall
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- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Inq Admin
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Richard Tew
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Matthew Mihaly
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- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Richard Tew
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Matthew Mihaly
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Richard Tew
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Inq Admin
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain William McCarroll
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Matthew Mihaly
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Mordengaard
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Justin Rogers
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- Grandmaster Nuclear Safety Technicion or Grandmaster Willowreed@aol.com
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- [world-create] Progressive Aristocracy (fwd) Matthew Mihaly
- VRML Richard Tew
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- absolute vs. relative coords Inq Admin
- absolute vs. relative coords Nathan F. Yospe
- ADMIN: More troubles I'm afraid, and the details of the recovery. J C Lawrence
- integrated character webpages ala Black and White creature pages msew
- integrated character webpages ala Black and White creature pages msew
- Admin: Kang.Nu troubles J C Lawrence
- Admin: Kanga.Nu troubles... J C Lawrence
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- travel times (commercial/graphical vs grassroots/text) the_logos@www.achaea.com
- Admin: We're back in business J C Lawrence
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- Triangular Damage Infliction System Ben Chambers
- Triangular Damage Infliction System Travis Casey
- Fwd: absolute vs. relative coords Nathan F.Yospe
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- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Chris Lloyd
- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? tanis@mediacom.it
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- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Christopher Allen
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- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Christopher Allen