November 2003
- Fwd: Web vs. Java client Eric Merritt
- Fwd: Web vs. Java client Mike Shaver
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 6, Issue 3 Alex Chacha
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 6, Issue 3 Zach Collins {Siege}
- java clients (was: MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 6, Issue 3) ceo
- MUD-Dev conference 2003/2004 Brian 'Psychochild' Green
- Biz: Game support Peter Tyson
- Biz: Game support Damion Schubert
- Biz: Game support Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Biz: Game support Michael Sellers
- Biz: Game support John Erskine
- Advantage for outside skills T. Alexander Popiel
- Advantage for outside skills Jeff Fuller
- Advantage for outside skills Paul Schwanz
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment szii@sziisoft.com
- Removing access to entertainment Patrick Dughi
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Sheela Caur'Lir
From: "John Buehler" <johnbue@msn.com>
> Example 1: Nighttime and rainstorms.
> In graphical games, the gee-whiz graphics are a major selling
> point. All the screenshots that we see show amazing detail,
> wonderful graphics, magical effects and so on. Yet half of
> the game time is rendered for 'night'. The screen goes dark.
> I can't see the neato graphics. In truth, I can't see much of
> anything. Rainstorms do the same thing.
While I agree that nighttime is often too dark, it can also add to a
game if done proberly. Also, if you have never played an online game
where you went "wow, what a sunset!" you have missed something - We
are talking about Persitent Worlds here, and if they don't have a
"mood" the would quickly grow boring.
That all said and done, the worst example of nighttime for me, was
once when I couldn't even see the feets of the character I was
playing. (Barbarian warrior in Kithicor at night, EverQuest)
And the best was probably Anarchy Online when it went dark and I was
a bit peeved about the dark and thought "Hey, what are those goggles
for ... whoa, I can see again!". That was a very elegant way to get
around it. Night Vision classes are cool btw. :o)
Rainstorms .. well, what can I say, it seems all developer thinks
that when it rains you also have a thick fog - which isn't the case
- So I'm guessing it's more a matter of computing power problem -
ie. do not have enough juice to show both pretty landscapes and
pretty weather effects at the same time.
> Example 2: Mesmerization.
> This is where one character is able to cause another character
> to go unresponsive to controls because it is 'mesmerized'.
> This effect can last 30 seconds or more. But the esential
> truth of the effect is that the player can not play the game
> for those 30 seconds.
Ah, but there are often counter to this ability, such as Magical
Resistances, or giving yourself a small DOT so you are awakened
quickly.
You want them to have to counter your abilities and skills - Fair
enough, But you also have to counter theirs.
Besides, it has become an essential crowd control method when you
play vs. monsters, so you don't wipe out due to a wrong pull. Wiping
out may cost you real life hours to get back to where you where.
And I'm sure that is even more frustrating.
> Example 3: Blindness.
> This is a combination of the first two examples. A character
> causes another character to go blind, meaning that the player
> can't see anything in the game world. Their controls may be
> accessible, but the world itself is not visible.
Personally, I do not like Blind myself either, but I can certainly
see any wizard in a "real world" developing such a spell for their
own use. It simply have too much usage and it's a logical spell to
make.
If they can't see me, they can't hurt me.
Again, it's one of those things where you have to be able to counter
it with Magic Resists and perhaps some sort of Sight buff spell that
makes you immune to blind spells ?
> Example 4: Slow travel in large worlds.
> This is less removal of entertainment and more a barrier to
> getting to entertainment. Let's say that the world is
> geographically large and the task to be tackled requires
> multiple players to come together. Or multiple players simply
> want to gather because it's fun to do so. The time it takes
> to assemble those multiple players from around the game world
> can be prohibitive.
OK - This one is interesting because it's two-fold.
Originally a good way to make a small world seem large, would be to
make it slow to travel. As your world grows bigger, faster
travelling methods become interesting.
This can be run speed increasing buffs, wheelchairs, escelators,
rollerblades, skateboards, bicycles, horses, cars, airplanes,
spaceships - You name it, it's part of the fun to come up with some
interesting way of transportation. All the way up until you have
instant telportation accross the world, at which point it cannot go
much faster anymore.
Now to the flipside of the coin.
People spend drastically less time in each zone now, exept a few.
EverQuest is a prime example of this, all the newbie zones are
languishing with only 1-2 players in them now and then, and it's
usually just someone powerlevelling an alt character. In truth,
several areas of the game is now considered "dead" zones. Now, how
much content do you get if you don't stay in a zone long enough to
explore it's content ?
At some point, this might even be unhealthy for the game at large,
because the new players only knew a very few zones, and don't have a
largs sample as most of the older players may have.
I'm sure some of you have seen older EQ players rant about how
clueless new players are when they come into a dungeon, because they
never had to go there ?
Besides that, travelling is a part of many games experience. Say,
if you wanna go from Point A -- D, you might wanna go around Point B
and C to avoid the Giants and the Dragons so you don't die. You will
be labelled a clueless newbie in many games if you cannot travel
trough "oldworld newbie zones" at high level without dying. And an
annoyance to a high level guild if you cannot get yourself to the
site where a raid is forming.
I have to agree though, that traversing a world should be possible
to be done within half an hour or so. Sure, a few select spots in
the world may take longer to reach, but the main areas could be
connected with some sort of static teleporters or other fast
transportation method.
In fact, that is what Anarchy Online choose to do with their Whompa
system and the Grid. They ran into another interesting "problem"
though - When people pick missions in Anarchy Online, they always
make sure the missions are in a city zone, because then they can
just Whompa/Grid to the town and do the mission with no travelling
risk. Which makes the outdoor zones superflous in many cases.
Fast travelling surely have both advantages and disadvantages.
*whew*
Sorry for being longwinded.
---
Jens L. Nielsen
(aka. Sheela Caur'Lir) - Removing access to entertainment Marian Griffith
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Paul Schwanz
- Removing access to entertainment Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Removing access to entertainment apollyon .
- Removing access to entertainment Amanda Walker
- Removing access to entertainment Peter Keeler
- Removing access to entertainment Matt Mihaly
- Removing access to entertainment Amanda Walker
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Michael "Flury" Chui
- Removing access to entertainment Paul Schwanz
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Sheela Caur'Lir
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Sheela Caur'Lir
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Sheela Caur'Lir
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Sheela Caur'Lir
- Removing access to entertainment Jeff Crane
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Paul Schwanz
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Chanur Silvarian
- Removing access to entertainment Sheela Caur'Lir
- Removing access to entertainment Michael Sellers
- Removing access to entertainment Amanda Walker
- Removing access to entertainment Matt Mihaly
- Removing access to entertainment Kwon J. Ekstrom
- Removing access to entertainment Brian Lindahl
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Damion Schubert
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Marian Griffith
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Marian Griffith
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Corpheous Andrakin
- Removing access to entertainment Darren Hall
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Sheela Caur'Lir
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Removing access to entertainment Chanur Silvarian
- Removing access to entertainment Amanda Walker
- Removing access to entertainment Jeremy Neal Kelly
- Removing access to entertainment Corpheous Andrakin
- Removing access to entertainment John Buehler
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creations Mike Shaver
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creatio ns Christer Enfors XW {TN/PAC}
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creatio ns Lee Sheldon
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creatio ns Christer Enfors XW {TN/PAC}
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creatio ns Jeff Thompson
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creations Corey Crawford
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creatio ns Corpheous Andrakin
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creatio ns Ren Reynolds
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creatio ns Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creatio ns Crosbie Fitch
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creatio ns Amanda Walker
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creatio ns Ren Reynolds
- Second Life's customers own the IP of their creatio ns Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Effects of skill-imbalances? Joshua Judson Rosen
- download-barriers Joshua Judson Rosen
- download-barriers Matt Mihaly
- Language and platform for Text MUD server =?koi8-r?Q?=22?=Andrew Batyuck=?koi8-r?Q?=22=20?=< javaman@mail.ru>
- Language and platform for Text MUD server Miroslav Silovic
- Language and platform for Text MUD server Kwon J. Ekstrom
- Language and platform for Text MUD server Patrick Dughi
- Language and platform for Text MUD server Alex Chacha
- Ragnarok Wisdom Michael Tresca
- Java on Linux gbtmud
- Java on Linux Artur Biesiadowski
- AS TECHNOLOGY SCATTERS VIEWERS, NETWORKS GO LOOKING FOR THEM Michael Tresca
- Breakdown of Java users Christopher Kohnert
- Second Life's customers get [copyright?] of their creations Joshua Judson Rosen
- Rubies of Eventide shutting down Mantees de Tara
- Rubies of Eventide shutting down Zach Collins {Siege}
- Rubies of Eventide shutting down Sheela Caur'Lir
- Rubies of Eventide shutting down Michael Sellers
- Rubies of Eventide shutting down Koster, Raph
- Dopamine and addiction Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Dopamine and addiction David Love
- Dopamine and addiction a t y mcguire
- Dopamine and addiction Lars Duening
- Dopamine and addiction Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Dopamine and addiction Rayzam
- Dopamine and addiction Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Dopamine and addiction Rayzam
- Dopamine and addiction Marian Griffith
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Eli Stevens
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Jessica Mulligan
- Trusting the client, encrypting data ceo
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Amanda Walker
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Mike Shaver
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Sean Middleditch
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Peter Harkins
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Amanda Walker
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Crosbie Fitch
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Richard A. Bartle
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Mike Shaver
- Trusting the client, encrypting data ceo
- Trusting the client, encrypting data J C Lawrence
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Sean Middleditch
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Mike Shaver
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Paul Schwanz
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Vincent Archer
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Felix A. Croes
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Sean Middleditch
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Alain Hamel
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Richard A. Bartle
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Alex Chacha
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Amanda Walker
- Trusting the client, encrypting data Crosbie Fitch
- Payment Transaction Processing altug
- Payment Transaction Processing Sean Middleditch
- Payment Transaction Processing Jason Smith
- Payment Transaction Processing stanza
- Payment Transaction Processing Matt Mihaly
- Payment Transaction Processing Gary Cooper
- Payment Transaction Processing J C Lawrence
- Payment Transaction Processing Gary Whitten