In the vein of making a MUD realistic, I have stumbled upon one truth. I
feel it seperates the good muds from the bad ones. The truth is such: Rats
should be hard to kill. ;)
Now this may seem a simple concept enough. But look at most muds out there.
Rats, rabbits, squirrels, whatever, are the simplest, easiest things in the
game. Newbie bunnie bashing is how most people start. Even in such a game as
the 3d asheron's call (Note, I do not play that game, my brother does ;) ).
Rabbits just sit there and die in one hit. Now, granted. They are weak. But
do you _really_ think that in real life, a dude with a big sword could run
right at a squirrel and chop it in half? No! The squirrel would sense the
guy from a mile away and clear out. If the squirrel was on a bit of a sugar
high or something, and ended up fighting, then it would be very hard to hit.
I can just imagine this little squirrel nipping a swordswinger's legs while
he makes a fool of himself trying to swipe at the stupid critter that won't
stand still. On the warrior's side, the only way for a rodent to kill a full
grown man, would be to get him on the ground and then swarm over him, and
hopefully rip out a jugular.
Now we get to the point of all this: To achieve this effect, we have to
take into account several things. Mob personality. Positions of players.
Type of attack. For example, a mage casting a giant fireball in the
direction of the squirrel will have a much better chance of killing the
squirrel than a swordsman. As it stands in stock circle, all attacks,
whether they be offensive spells or a knife, work basically the same way.
They just assign damage. Makes no difference whether the enemy be a squirrel
or an ogre. Moreover, a large hammer is going to have a better chance of
hitting a pesky rodent than a sword. A squirrel's little nip at your feet
won't do anything either. We have to admit that a squirrel isn't going to be
able to kill you unless it trips you up. We can expand on this, and add low,
mid, high attacks, with different effects. Or add a system of limbs. Going
further into the squirrel, time its retreat from the fighter. If you can
figure out how to do this, you can add timing to any other aspect of the
game.
Anyway... I just thought I'd share this little epiphany with you all.
It all comes down to that one thing: If a warrior has a hard timing killing
a rodent, you are well on your way to creating a great mud.
- Kieran
"Think like a squirrel... be the squirrel..."
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