From: ak853@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Eric Blade)
Subject: Re: **** TOP 10 LPMUDs ****
Reply-To: ak853@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Eric Blade)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 11:44:01 GMT


In a previous article, jacob@fy.chalmers.se (Jacob Hallen) says:

>
>I do agree about the criticism of the combat system to a certain extent.
>We want to give the player a message each time his health status changes
>from one description to an other while he is in combat. This hasn't been 
>implemented yet. Our time is limited, and we place our priorities on things
>that we feel add the most to the game.
>
	How hard can that be to install? A 5-minute patch?  Or is CD
Driver too complicated for that?

>The combat system is designed to be more dangerous than the old one. This
>is compensated by the fact that the penalty for dying is much lower than
>in the old system. You lose a portion of the experience you earned through
>combat, your money and your belongings. That is all. You don't lose skills
>(unless you decide to change race/sex), and you don't lose any of the
>experience you earned on quests.
	Hey, wow, sounds just like the Genesis I played about 2 years
ago. Too bad it's nothing like that.

>
>There is a small imbalance in the combat system at the moment, because it
>is too easy to die as a newbie, and too hard to die when you are close to
>wizzing. This will be adjusted when all the major components of the mudlib
>are in place.
	If all the major components aren't in, then why in heck are you
allowing people to play? It makes no sense that people would play on a
mud that isn't ready yet, like people wouldn't eat in a restaurant that
is in its building stages. (ok, it's late, I've been up 24 hrs straigh,
but you get my allusion.)

>
>How difficult it is to get in contact with other players is very much
>dependent on how you behave in the mud. Traditional tactics, where you
>run around as a mad hatter, will most certainly leave you with very few 
>friends. If you take it a bit easier, and spend a little time in the
>natural places of assembly (pubs, shops, banks etc), you will make
>friends just as fast as on any other mud. We have checked this very
>carefully, and it really isn't a problem for most people.
>
	That would've been much easier when there were more than 8
people on Genesis at one time.  I've logged into Genesis several times
over the past 4 or 5 months, at radically different times, and have seen
no more than 9 people, counting myself.

>If it is any comfort, we plan to make dying a lot more interesting.
>
	Anything like the 2.4.5 mudlib's death was interesting?
>
>Stronger incentive to roleplaying was one of the main design goals when we
>planned the new Genesis. Shouting and widespread tells destroy too much
>of the illusion to be acceptable in such an environment. A very strong
>advantage of having limited communication channels is that it's quite
>difficult and not very fun to be abusive to other players. If someone
>is rude, you can just walk away, and be rid of the stupid git.
>
	Isn't there one person left in the world that can respect the
ideas of a truly amazing programmer (Lars)?

>To return to our vision of the future, we want to make several strategies
>of play possible. A player should be able to become wizard by exploring
>the world, solving quests on the way, and generally staying away from combat.
>Of course some quests may require that you defeat foes to reach the goal,
>but there would be nothing to stop a non-violent player to hire help
>to deal with such problems.
>We also want to make room for enjoyable play for people who want to stay
>as mortals, and alternate careers for those who want to climb in the
>world, but are not interested in writing code. We also want a world, and
>not a bunch of castles that place igloos next to jungles, kalashnikovs
>in the hands of orcs and 'the most fearsome monster in the world' in
>every third room.
>You can feel proud and heroic after killing a cockroach if it feels
>like a real battle, and you can be utterly bored when you walk over
>your 15th archdevil with special extra superduper powers. It's all
>a matter of perspective.
>
>To round this off, I can just say that all this won't happend over night,
>but with the present gang of wizards, we have very high hopes for the future.

	Also, of the ENTIRE time I've logged into Genesis since
re-opening after the 2.4.5 mudlib was removed, I've only seen a wizard
logged in three times.  That's probably some 50 or 70 logins.   Real
great wizards.

Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp