HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Subject: Realistic Games
Distribution: world
Organization: <What Work for a Living>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 03:42:38 +0000

Tis a pity Avalon, a commercial game in the UK, is not attached to the
Net, because for all its faults and it has a few, it is damned realistic
well as realistic as a game with magic in can be.

Don't kid yourself that it is impossible to write a fairly realistic game,
its not. But what it takes is time and skill. Well time maybe, having seen
the state of Avalon's code, its more luck than skill that actually makes it
work.

I'm a fair newcomer to the games attached to the Net, and on the whole I've
been fairly impressed. But never get complacent and never believe that any
thing is actually impossible. Many's the time I've heard a coder say thats
impossible, can't be done, only to have them come back and say, 'Yeah, I can
do that'.

As for skill based systems, it would be hard to write a playable mug that 
was purely skill based. I've seen people try to do RuneQuest MUGs, but
generally they end up being to easy to get powerful. Getting the balance 
between XP and skills is hard....and then you have the problem of how to
reward your supreme role-players. I've not seen all the problems solved in
eight years of playing and designing, but I am ever hopeful!

Keep up the good work!

Spell
--
You're never alone in the Twiglet Zone
Spell@Spell.Demon.Co.Uk
From: guddt@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (David Bennett)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
Subject: Re: ATTN: skill based muds
Date: 16 Nov 1992 14:44:02 +0800
Organization: The University of Western Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: uniwa.uwa.edu.au

jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jamieson Norrish) writes:

>This is certainly a step in the right direction. However, why have
>levels at all? As far as I am aware, their only use is to increase
>hit-points, so that the player can take on tougher monsters. This
>really has no justification in reality, and is simply a hang-over from
>*D&D, which certainly has a lot to answer for.

Apart from the fact you need numbers of some form.  As in how good you
are at something.  Levels are just an abstraction....

>IMHO, combat should be deadly. That is, characters should have few hit
>points, which don't increase (unless something changes the character
>physically), and damage is debilitating. That is, the fewer hp you
>have, the greater the penalties on your skill rolls. And after two or
>three good blows, any human should be dead.

Two points.  Makeing other interactions is a lot harder to write.
Killing a monster is easy(er)...  Realism is not a big point in muds.
I would chalenge you to find a mud that is even slightly realistic...

>Quite; and the people who did the training, and who decided who could
>join would be none other than the players themselves. Anyone with a
>high enough level in a skill should be able to teach someone who isn't
>as good in that particular skill. There is nothing which says there
>must only be one guild of each type. Of course, chances are the
>players involved in one guild will not appreciate their profits being
>diverted into someone else's pockets.

Of course.  We have implemented a system simalar at dw.  High level
players can teach the low level ones.  You can also teach yourself...

>Guilds, when composed entirely of players, would no longer be faceless
>organizations; they would be dynamic, with power struggles for the top
>job, financial troubles, feuds with rival guilds and so on. And the
>most wonderful part is that it is all down to the players.

This is hard to do.  One reason is that only a certain number of
the players are on a mud at any one time.  The entire system falls
apart when there are not many players on a mud, as you cannot control
the guilds any more.  It would be hard ro have a struggle for the
top position if the people struggling log on at mutualy excluseive
times.  Or, say a top guy who suddenly doesnt log on for a loooong
time.

David.
[DDT] Pink fish forever.
-- 
  David Bennett,  guddt@uniwa.uwa.oz.au | University Computer Club
     Where Pink fish swim backwards.    | c/o Guild of Undergraduates
These words I am singing now mean nothing more than meow to an animal - TMBG
Disclaimer: Any spelling mistakes in this article are all entirly my fault.  Any grammer errors spotted in this article were put there because I could.
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
Subject: Re: Wizardhood on LPMuds.
From: jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jamieson Norrish)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 02:07:59 GMT
 <By2o9I.Ist@news.iastate.edu><JAMIE.92Nov22143655@kauri.vuw.ac.nz><Nov22.204237.57256@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>
Organization: /u/student/jamie/.organization

In article <Nov22.204237.57256@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>
ludwigj@CS.ColoState.EDU (Vilkata (Joe Ludwig)) writes:

   I think it would be best to have a pre-defined world and have the players
   start out as outsiders.  If your system is capable of allowing players to
   rise through the ranks (not skills, but rather prestige, wealth, influence,
   and military power), then the players can and will modify the world as they 
   play.

Why as outsiders? The only reason I can think of is that it saves a
lot of work - you don't need to write large amounts of background
material for the players, introducing them to this new world. However,
it's not a very elegant thing to do, IMHO. Where do these "outsiders"
come from? And who lives in the world you've set up? Who built it,
etc.?

At the other extreme, instead of just preparing one background text
for all players, a separate background knowledge file could be set up
for each player. A lot of hard work, and probably not worth the effort
unless you have very dedicated players. However, I notice that on
Mua'Kaar beginning players are "guided" through background creation by
whichever high-up they happen to ally/apprentice to. Much the same
thing, in effect.

Jamie
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin,rec.games.mud.misc
From: ksdavis@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Karleenus Schwartz Davis)
Subject: Re: ATTN: skill based muds
Followup-To: rec.games.mud.admin
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 22:24:09 GMT

rossw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Ross Williamson) writes:
>  [. . .]  how do we now compare players.  With the 
>current xp systems, it's easy the highest xp is tops.  But
>with skills how do we handle it, are some skills better than others
>are they all on the same footing.
>
>	Any comments?

Why bother comparing the characters?  Having no real basis for
comparison is bound to encourage role-playing.  On Cyberworld, I
particularly enjoy being able to interact with a player knowing only
his name and a few other ordinary things, but not his "level" or rank
of any kind.  I also advocate removing superfluous information from
"who" lists -- like only including their name and maybe raor guild,
but never their level unless they're wizards or guild leaders or
however you've got your mud set up.

What good does it do to have one character be "better" than another?
I personally knew a lot of very high-level players on my old mud who
were the least interesting people in the game, whereas some of the
lower-level players were much "better" role-players and added much
more to the game as a whole.

-sz
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: dikumud@atlantic.mps.ohio-state.edu (Dikumud)
Subject: MudOS
Organization: Ohio State University; Physics Department
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 17:17:58 GMT

Uh, don't wanna sound stupid, but what exactly is MudOS?

DaShadow (128.146.37.87 6666)
From: bls@sector7g.Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Scearce)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
Subject: Re: Diku Help
Date: 19 Nov 1992 16:05:41 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems
Distribution: world
Reply-To: bls@sector7g.Eng.Sun.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: sector7g

In article 6938@blaze.cs.jhu.edu, jelson@circle.cs.jhu.edu (Jeremy Elson) writes:
> This means that somewhere in the vast sea of code which makes up your
> Diku, there is an infinite loop.

Shouldn't it still be running then?

---
Brian Scearce                                           bls@sector7g.eng.sun.com
              The above does not necessarily represent Sun policy.
                  "You can't fit the truth on a t-shirt, man."
                                 "That'd fit."
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
Subject: Staging one-shots
From: jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jamieson Norrish)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 02:24:05 GMT
Organization: /u/student/jamie/.organization

Has anyone tried staging one shot events on a MUSH/MUSH? I don't mean
something purely social, like MasqueMUCK, but rather something with a
plot. For a cliched example, a murder mystery, with the characters
given a set number of hours to discover the murderer/keep the blame of
themselves.

If I were to do this sort of thing, I'd like to have, maybe,
seven-fifteen guaranteed players, who could all play for the entire
duration. Then, I'd design the "plot" up to where the adventure would
begin, and then create characters. That is, I'd create the character
backgrounds, personality quirks etc., appearance, etc. Then all the
players need to do is read over their character file and go.

The reason I'd create characters for the players is both so that the
plot, setting and characters all gel together nicely, and so that
players wouldn't have the difficulty of role-playing a completely
unknown character on the fly. Does anyone disagree with this?

Jamie
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jamieson Norrish)
Subject: Re: Wizardhood on LPMuds.
Organization: /u/student/jamie/.organization
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 02:36:55 GMT
	<By2o9I.Ist@news.iastate.edu>

In article <By2o9I.Ist@news.iastate.edu> griffon@iastate.edu (Tamber
Kelsain) writes:

[Large amounts of post deleted, all of which show a wonderful
accordance with my way of thinking. :-)]

   can be destroyed.  A large goal of the coders is to eliminate game
   mechanics and make the game as realistic as possible.

This is exactly the sort of thing that I would love to see. A move
away from restricting characters with artificial rules, and making
them the focus of the world. With sufficient players, they should come
up with restrictions of their own that require no coding to implement.

	   I think it would be ideal to start the game as little more
   than a barren land, where players' skills bring about life and
   civilization.  All forms of money and most of the objects on the game
   will be created by players.  I do not yet know the practibility of
   this idea, but I definitely think it is worth thinking about.

This I am not so sure about; I think that this might well lead to a
fairly chaotic jumble of ideas, as everybody builds what they want to.
I think that it might be better to give them a set base to work from,
so that they will know what sort of thing is expected from them. Of
course, this entirely depends on whether you have a predefined idea of
what you want before you start. Otherwise, starting the players from
scratch is a great idea. It would certainly force them to work together.

   This has been a constant thought of mine, how to make newbies able to
   enter into the ranks of the ancient players.  Maybe allow
   apprenticeships to be set up?

Of course. This sort of thing should be completely up to the players.
This does mean that you must have a system which allows the teaching
of skills by characters to characters. In this way, apprenticeships
become of vital importance to the growth of any business, etc. 

   Thank you, I have a feeling we'll need it.

Well, if you need any moral support, or just want to discuss specifics
of the system or whatever, feel free to send me mail. This is exactly
the sort of game that I'm always trying to promote, and I'd love to
hear all the details.

Jamie
From: dikumud@atlantic.mps.ohio-state.edu (Dikumud)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
Subject: Re: ATTN: skill based muds
Keywords: skills
Date: 18 Nov 92 16:30:26 GMT
Article-I.D.: pacific.1992Nov18.163026.9119
Organization: Ohio State University; Physics Department

>Has there ever been any thought amongst mud admin toward changing a skill
>system so they go up automatically?
>

Dark Shadow'd DikuMUD has had this implemented for over 5 months now.  To see
it in action, try us...

128.146.37.87 6666 - atlantic.mps.ohio-state.edu 6666

DaShadow
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
Subject: Statistics about some MUDS
From: rossw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Ross Williamson)
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 22:33:16 GMT
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.


	Filling out some of the information about MUDS into the FAQ
I was looking for some statisticall information about the MUD's that are
in use at the moment

	Specifically :
		For your mud could you tell me
		a)  How much disk space it uses ( approx )
		b)  Does it have online building.
		c)  And which of the categories below would you place your 
			mud into. ( the predominant activity(ies) only. )

			- Role-Playing
			- Combat Orientated.
			- Socialising.
			- Other Please State.

TIA

Ross Williamson ( FAQ Author )
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
Subject: Re: ATTN: skill based muds
From: rossw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Ross Williamson)
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 21:30:36 GMT
 <1992Nov15.194821.4786@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> <1992Nov16.030136.3141@leland.Stanford.EDU> <BxsHFD.7H7@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

leet@acsu.buffalo.edu (Brian D. Leet) writes:

>In article <1992Nov16.030136.3141@leland.Stanford.EDU> whale@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stephen Schmidt) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov15.194821.4786@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> rossw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Ross Williamson) writes:
>>>	We have found that this has it's pros and cons.  One of the
>>>more interesting ones is how do we now compare players.  With the 
>>>current xp systems, it's easy the highest xp is tops.
>>
>>A related and much more practical question is: how do you know when the
>>player makes wizard?

>Well at Underdark (Cynic's not the other one, Openning RSN).  We don't feel
>that the mass accumulation of experience points is what makes someone 
>qualified to become a wizard.  We do use an experience point system but keep
>track of experience points seperately for the player as a whole and each
>individual guild they are a member of.  We feel that in order to be a good
>wiz the player should fit in well with the existing wizard family and be 
>enthusiastic.  With this view point it is fairly clear that ability to 
>gather experience points and ability to wiz are two pretty much unrelated
>issues that shouldn't be confused.

	We are going to implement an application system.  Whereby the player
who thinks they have obtained the right pre-requisits for a wizard can
apply to the gods.  This does mean that the player has the choice of
becoming a wizard or not and it also allows the gods to choose good (?)
wizards for the mud.
	
	Thats just our system others may disagree.

Ross
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jamieson Norrish)
Subject: Re: ATTN: skill based muds
Organization: /u/student/jamie/.organization
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 01:15:12 GMT
	<BxtFpK.93s@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
	<Nov16.180604.60899@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>

In article <Nov16.180604.60899@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> ludwigj@CS.ColoState.EDU (Vilkata (Joe Ludwig)) writes:

     Is there any reason why players can't be allowed to build within the game
   setting?  Why not make it possible for players to purchase land, and build
   their own castle with all the money they made from killing that really nasty
   dragon 15 times?   (This is of course another problem, maybe I'll post about
   that one later)  They could hire human, or even sub-human guards, and who
   knows... maybe the sudden appearance of the player's castle would draw in a
   horde of NPCs who are in the mood to ravage the countryside. (This is where 
   the wizards would come in.)

Quite; what would be ideal is a combination of MUD skill/combat
resolution, and the interactive and building opportunities of a
MUSH/MUCK. As I mentioned somewhere else, it should be possible for
players to give bits of their land to other players (who otherwise
wouldn't be able to build) in return for services and fealty. It
should be possible, with minimal new coding, to implement a crude
approximation of the feudal system, and all it's glories. :)

Jamie
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: kjt001@dunix.drake.edu (Devil Bunny!)
Subject: Re: ATTN: skill based muds
Organization: Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 02:33:10 GMT

About the problem with a character using a skill over and over again
just to get good at it, even if it doesn't accomplish anything else:
Why not?  Isn't that realistic?  If a character does climb up and down
a hill over and over for 50 hours, he WILL get better at climbing...but
he will also get fatigued faster...


Comments?

-- 
___________________________________________________________________________
|                        Kevin Tieskoetter                                |
|   kjt001@acad.drake.edu                     kjt001@dunix.drake.edu      |
|                               Drake University                          |
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: wizard@engin.umich.edu ()
Subject: Becoming a wiz (was Re: ATTN: skill based muds)
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 23:58:46 EST
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor


There has been some discussion in this thread about how players would become
wizards under a skill based system.  As somone who spent a lot of time
exploring and becoming a wiz on my first mud (Avalon...84 hours), then made
wiz on Krynn in one week (35 hours) before co-admining HeroMud, I think I've
had ample experience with the subject.  I personally feel that becoming a
wizard should not depend on how many monsters a player can kill.  I would
like to see a system where all wizards get there by conscious promotion by
the mud's admin or some appointed official for promotions.  For Hero II
 (if it ever opens), we planned on making wizhood available to all as long
as their idea was good.  There would be no way to become a wizard by just
playing the game or "winning".  It sounds good, but has some problems.
One is that it can be hard (at least for me) to read an idea that isn't
worth coding and then turning the player down.  Another is that players seem
to like the old system (maybe because most people lack originality and would
rather run back and forth from the dragon's lair to the pub all day than
think of new ideas?).
   Anyway, some things we did on the original Hero that I think are good
ideas are:  Have an intermediate level between player and wiz (or more than
one).  On Hero, we had players actually take over the duties of "Death" for
a while.  They would get a robe and scythe, and they would have to teleport
to the recently deceased to reap their souls.  I think players had a lot of
fun with this.  It was their first experience with teleporting and gave them
an increase in "power" before the greater increase of being a wiz.  Another
intermediate level we had involved the player reading thru all the /doc files
and passing a quiz based on those files.  Players had to pass the test by
getting something like 18 out of 20 correct before they could be considered
for wizhood.  At that point, all current wizards got to vote on the prospective
wizard.  If there were any strong arguments against a prospective wiz, that
person's application was denied and the player file erased.  We actually had
two players who were denied wizship who signed back on under different names,
played within the rules and were nice, and later became wizards.  However,
even with all the precautions we took, we still promoted well over 90% of
the people who applied for wizhood.  Oh well, that's my 2 cents.  I hope it
helps someone, or at least provides some entertainment ;).
-- 
 "3 reasons why we can't make wiz in RL: **  Rich "Wichart" Chappell
    1)  We don't do enough killing.      **  wizard@warhol.art.umich.edu
    2)  There are too damn many quests!  **  wichart@aal.itd.umich.edu
    3)  The god doesn't sign on anymore. **  rgc@church-st.ccs.itd.umich.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: whale@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stephen Schmidt)
Subject: Re: ATTN: skill based muds
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 03:01:36 GMT

In article <1992Nov15.194821.4786@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> rossw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Ross Williamson) writes:
>	At the mud I admin we are just about to upgrade to a new
>driver and with this we are also looking to go to a solely skills based
>system.  
>	We have found that this has it's pros and cons.  One of the
>more interesting ones is how do we now compare players.  With the 
>current xp systems, it's easy the highest xp is tops.

A related and much more practical question is: how do you know when the
player makes wizard?

I've seen one MUD which uses XP to buy skills that requires your total
skills to be above a certain level to make wizard, plus quests. Personally
I think that abstractly it'd be better to design the quests so that you
have to be of a certain skill level to complete them, but in practice I
understand that may or may not work out as well as I'd like.
  The MudOS mudlib is, at least for beta-release, going to duck this issue.
It provides quests and skills, but doesn't set formal conditions for being
a wizard. Wizzing is done by giving someone a directory or by sponsoring
them into a wizard guild. We're not going to leave it this way but we don't
want to make a rash decision; this is one of the issues that I'm hoping to
solicit beta-testers' opinions on. I do think that a system of having to
complete quests will remain at the heart of most wizard criteria, though.

Mobydick@TMI
-- 
Steve Schmidt			<><		   whale@leland.stanford.edu
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist
indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist
conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
From: ludwigj@CS.ColoState.EDU (Vilkata (Joe Ludwig))
Subject: Unaligned Data Access error...
Summary: Really screwy error
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 22:15:25 GMT
Organization: Thealir Construction Company


This may not be exactly the right group, but what the hell.  It is a bit of
MUD code.

When I call this function, I get a warning/error/notice/whatever that says:
Fixed up unaligned data access for pid <pid> (Program name) at pc 0x<number>
This doesn't core dump, or even affect execution as far as I can tell, but it
is a bit annoying.  The function follows; all the lines that cause the warning
are marked with the comment '/*  ** */'  They also seem to only do it on the 
first iteration of the loop, which makes this even more confusing...
Code follows:

struct pendingread
{
  char *string;              /* where to read from */
  int nowat;                 /* where we are in string */
  struct pendingread *next;  /* if we run out, go to here */
};

void  build_readstack(dbref, char *);

struct pendingread *readin = NULL;

void build_readstack(dbref d, char *list)
{
  int line;
  char buf[BUFFER_LEN];
  struct pendingread *readstack = NULL;
    
  for(line = countlines(d, list); line > 0; line--)
  {
    readin = (struct pendingread *) malloc(sizeof(struct pendingread)); /* ** */
    if(readin == NULL)
      panic("out of memory");
    readin->next = readstack;  /*  ** */
    readstack = readin;
    
    sprintf(buf, "%s%c%d", list, PROPDIR_DELIMITER, line);

    readin->string = alloc_string(getproperty(d, buf));  /*  ** */
    readin->nowat = 0;  /*  ** */
  }

}

Any clues?  

alloc_string allocates memory for a string and copies the string into it.
countlines counts the number of lines in the property list.


-- 
+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+
| Vilkata, the Dark King   | "It's better to rule in hell, than serve in     |
| ludwigj@cs.colostate.edu |  Heaven."  -- Paridise Lost??                   |
| Vilkata@Most MUCKs       | "Maybe she sat on something sharp." -- Piper    |