-----Original Message-----
From: Fredfish (E. Harper) <oxford_thames@ON.AIBN.COM>
To: CIRCLE@post.queensu.ca <CIRCLE@post.queensu.ca>
Date: Wednesday, August 30, 2000 2:26 AM
Subject: [CIRCLE] MUD essential features
>This is my first post, hi all.
Hi
>I'm in the process of starting up a MUD, and by now I'm pretty much set on
the Circle codebase. I've been thinking though, what exactly does a MUD need
to set it apart from the competition? What features are pretty much
essential to distinguish J. Random Admin's MUD from stock circle?
One of my major factors in deciding a mud to play is a automapper.
>1. Combat
>
>Many MUDs follow the old routine of, 'x hits y <z message describing
damage>'. Personally I find this boring, and I think many would agree with
me. Partially, this has to do with my belief in Role Playing, but I think on
any MUD combat needs to be more dynamic and exciting then just this.
Thoughts:
>
>-- Mapped Combat
I believe that making mapped combat would not be difficult, but could be
done, with a lot of hard work...
all in all though, it wouldn't add much to the mud, (instead of x hits y, y
hits x you get x moves, x hits y, y hits x)
pretty much, lag of even .3 seconds would make it hard to get someone who is
fleeing etc...
>-- Combat Style
>Players can assign different combat 'styles', most likely based on varying
the proportions of three or four key factors (ie agressive vs. defensive,
power vs. finesse, etc.) For ease of use it might be best to allow players
to define two or three optional configurations, such as one for fighting
'chaff' mobs, one for defending allies in a group, one for all-out agressive
berserker action... But. How do you balance all of this? Again, how do you
code this?
>
My idea would be to have several different positions instead of
POS_FIGHTING...like POS_FIGHTING_AGGRESSIVE 10
POS_FIGHTING_GROUP 11
POS_FIGHTING_BERSERK 12
make a struct fighting_style{
int aggressive; /*how aggressive is this ( high =
+hit -AC low = +AC -hit)
int powerful; /*how powerful is this (high =
+damage -hit low = +hit -damage)
etc....
}
then in the character struct you have
struct fighting_style styles[3];
the characters can modify these with a command like "style" (ie. "style
group 25 75") assigning numbers to each different property...with a set
amount that all the values must add up to.
Then, when in combat, functions can use this by doing something like
struct fighting_style current_style = ch->styles[GET_POS(ch) -
POS_AGGRESSIVE];
then you can put things in damage() like
percent = number(1, 101) - (current_style.aggressive / 10);
>-- Scissors, Paper, Rock
I dont think this would be a good idea
>4. Keep stuff secret
>
>When players know they have 70 hp left, they're inclined to virtually whip
out their calculators, punch in the numbers, and know exactly what the odds
are. It's fairly radical, but why not get around this by simply not telling
players exactly what the numbers are?
>
>Think about it... if a player knows he has x points of y, he can have it
all figured out, and thus pick his fights so he can't lose. Now, if all he
has is a rough idea of his stats, suddenly things become more interesting!
Now, his decision is not a simple calculation - he must take into account
many factors, and if he isn't cautious, he winds up a crispy critter. Kinda
puts a damper on 'bunny-bashing' for experience.
>
>Now, to am evil guy like me, this is inherently a good idea. Some of you
may disagree... and some of you may not.
I have tried this, and tried to play a mud like this...it sucks.
The thing to do is to not let the players know what the mob's stats are, and
make identifying items a high level spell instead of a basic scroll...then
he must learn from consider and experiance what mobs he can kill. This
meshes with my idea about items having their stats known as well...
Whenever an item or mob is loaded, it can tweak...some of its stats may rise
or fall. When you cast identify, it tells you the base stats. (you could
have a jade knife +2/+35 or +0/+25 but the identify would say merely
Base stats +1/+30 also, if there is a mob that you can just kill, and you
find another, there is no way to tell exactly what it got for hps, so it
could be harder, and you wouldn't want to try it.)
"Everything else is just a 2-D algorithm problem, easily solved with
junior-high level trig." --PjD
I wish we had trig in my old junior high :P
--Blaize
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