Since some people seemed to like the ideas that evolved from the brief thread on object/weapon weights, I thought I'd try bringing out more ideas towards realism in hack-n-slash (or role-playing) MUDs. One of the things that popped into my mind as being rather poorly implemented: weather. Weather, as it is now, accounts for a lot of things, but it's universal. A storm in one place means a storm in another. Thus, I might suggest making different zones have different weather. So it could be raining in Midgaard and bright and sunny in Rome. The natural extension thus, is to make zones be able to modify the weather, so it's burning hot in the desert, rainy and stuffy in the rain forest, freezing cold on the peaks of mountains, etc. If we then have zones that are traditionally colder, we can then evolve weather even further. Make it colder at night, have zones with longer/short seasons that affect weather, etc. So, now we have the base system here designed. We can then get to the really fun stuff in having weather affect players in nasty ways. It's burning hot? Movements down (or exhaustion up), getting thirsty faster, getting weaker... Freezing cold? Watch out for frostbite! Raining? Don't want that armor to get rusty... Hail? Owwww, that's got to hurt! Snowy? Moving will be a lot harder. Wet/Icy? Don't slip! Adds quite a bit of depth when players aren't going around wearing full plate mail in the middle of a desert, eh? Give them a challenge! I think a common problem implementors face is making their game more challenging. The "obvious" (but wrong) solution to this problem is to make tougher mobiles, weaker objects, etc. Instead of upsetting the game balance like that, why not put players up against the enviroment they're in, as well as it's inhabitants. Traps and perils, bad weather, fog and mist, creepers and tangled mats of vines to trip you up. It doesn't necessarily discourage any activity, just makes players think about more things before they rush and attack. If things are in the way, they might decide against playing rough while in that rain forest. Tripping could be their death. Your thoughts, suggestions, bashing? -- Daniel Koepke dkoepke@california.com Forgive me father, for I am sin. +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Ensure that you have read the CircleMUD Mailing List FAQ: | | http://cspo.queensu.ca/~fletcher/Circle/list_faq.html | +-----------------------------------------------------------+
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