<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again) --> <!--X-From-R13: Oqnz Ivttvaf <avtugsnyyNhfre1.vasvpnq.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 07:27:03 +0000 --> <!--X-Message-Id: 199709250727.AAA21805#user1,inficad.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: E0xDotA-0004Hx-00#crucigera,fysh.org --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is sup</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:nightfall#user1,inficad.com"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg01431.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg01433.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg01414.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg01462.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#01432">Author</A> | <A HREF="#01432">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#01432">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Adam Wiggins <<A HREF="mailto:nightfall#user1,inficad.com">nightfall#user1,inficad.com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 00:27:24 -0700 (MST)</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> [Maddy:] > Previously, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote.... > > Given that the availability of documentation is so restricted (not > > downloadable or printable), chances are that I've built my first character > > without a clear understanding of what will work best in the game. Ever go > > to a gaming convention and seen a guy running some game say "Who's the > > cleric?" -- and the whole group raises their hands? Or *nobody* raises his > > hand at all? Bad situation. Same thing when you start up a character on a > > MUD... you log on as a troll, and the first thing you see is thirty trolls > > running around. Screw that, I want to do something different. What do you > > mean, 'no'? > > Well I've never been to a games-con (missed the last local one) so I can't > really say I've seen that, but the kinds of games I play don't have clerics. > There might be players with healing skills, but they're refered to the > player with healing skills. This raises a valid issue for any mud, actually. Not sure if this is what Caliban was aiming at originally, but I find it incredibly annoying to get a character creation sequence that goes something like this: Welcome to X mud, enter your name or 'new'> new Enter a name for this character> Ji Indur Dawndeath 1 - Human 2 - Dwarf 3 - Elf 4 - Troll Choose a race> 4 1 - Warrior 2 - Thief 3 - Cleric 4 - Mage 5 - Shadowdancer Choose a class> 5 Sorry, your race cannot be that class. Choose a class> 1 1 - Midgaard 2 - New Thalos 3 - Land of Shadow and Illusion Choose a hometown> 3 Sorry, your class cannot start there. ...etc. Besides the triteness of this example, *why* in the world couldn't I have found out what classes I could be first so that I could choose the 'right' race to be the interesting class? And *why* do I have to enter my character's name first, frequently before I even know what the theme of the mud is, or anything about what kind of character they're going to be? The morals being: character creation should ask questions in the correct order - general to specific; and second, documentation about character creation should be availible before you actually waste your time creating a character that you'll decide to redo an instant later now that you know what your choices are. This gets even more important as your character creation process gets longer and more involved (which I vastly prefer). > No - they're not, but they are simple sentences. "pick up the banana from > inside the chest on the table and insert it quickly up the orc's bottom" is > the far extreme my parser can cope with. Well it can't actually handle > "orc's", but that is because I've not gotten around to it yet *8). Hrm, that's one of the first things I did. It's super easy and makes your parser look a whole lot smarter than it really is. :) > Well I'll treat "get" to mean pick up the object and hold it/put it rucksack > or whatever. Unless of "get" is followed by a preposition, in which case > it's a different situation. "get on the horse", "get out of the pit" are > valid examples of how "get" isn't "get" any more. Get is possibly the worst verb in the english language as far as this goes. How about: > get down You boogey down. > get high You whip out a fatty and light up. > get busy You get to work. Pretty pointless discussion, IMO. NLP has plenty enough problems without trying to make endless use of such an ambiguous verb. More importantly, most of these 'commands' are irrelevant on a mud, so why would the parser bother dealing with it? I have a hard time envisioning a mud where 'get laid', 'get down', 'get high' and 'get busy' are all valid commands that cause your character to do something. Although it might be funny.. > get laid You go to the store. You buy some make-up and a tight miniskirt. You spend an hour making yourself up. You squeeze into your new miniskirt and a tight top, showing plenty of clevage. You drive your car down to the local pub. You order a drink. You wait. You see a man with a cute pair of buns. You approach him and begin making flirtatious small-talk. He buys you a drink. He buys you another drink. You leave the bar together. He drives you back to his place. etc. While I'm all for getting rid of super-atomic commands, I think that this is taking it a tad far. :) > The elf can repeat what the human says (ie say "Ifmmo xpsme") and because > the mapping from elf to human reverses almost perfectly the human will see > "Hello world" from the elf. Now that example is very simple and with the > little experiments I've fiddled with you do get mistakes when the > translation is repeated. Not nice mistakes like whole words transposed or > even the wrong word, but simple mistakes like "hello" becomes "hillo". The only thing I don't like about this is that the text output on 'say' looks ridiculous - not even pronouncable. We wanted each language to have a distinct feel to it, ala Tolkien's stuff. This has the downside of being unrepeatable, but I don't really mind. My experiences with attempting to have someone who is completely unfamiliar with a certain language trying to repeat something someone said in it after only hearing it once tell me that it's damn near impossible for them to get anywhere near what was actually said, especially given the way that spoken language of any sort generally comes out very slurred compared to the 'correct' pronunciation. Plus, I don't like people being able to log an entire conversation that they don't understand one whit of and being able to repeat it all without error to someone that does know the language. > I can't remember who it was, but someone mentioned sign language. Now that > is a perfectly acceptable way to pass on the message. > > > roar loudly > Bubba roars loudly. I've always wondered - how does one roar softly, exactly? > > act like a dragon. > Bubba acts like a large creature with wings. Hum, now this is certainly interesting. I like this idea a lot, and not *too* difficult - just a list of nouns which map back to more general concepts. Thus 'act like a dragon' might get the same or similar output as 'act like a bird', depending on the viewer's perception, and perhaps the actor's acting ability? (Wow - a new skill!) People could sit around and play pictionary if they were really bored... > > I dislike that myself. I prefer short descriptions. > > Like... > > >look > You are .... [blah blah blah] > There is a man standing at the bar. > >wait > A tall man enters the tavern. > > I'm certainly only thinking of listing the least ambigious name. This is tricky. Up until now we've had two different names for each person, long and short. Long shows up when they arrive or when you look at the room, and short all other times. So if you don't know someone: A one-armed, bearded elf with green eyes is standing here. > The one-armed elf says, 'Hello.' The long description uses the three most 'noticable' adjectives, while the short only uses one. The noun is usually the race of the person. Names are just tacked on as another adjective, if you know them. Last names are left out in the short name. Cormac Mac Art the one-armed, bearded elf is standing here. > Cormac says, 'Hello.' However, I've been considering a way to, as you say, come up with the minimum name necessary to avoid ambiguity. Thus, given a room full of elves and a human, you might see: The bearded elf says, 'blah' The green-eyed elf replies, 'blah' The human says, 'blah!' If it were a room full of humans with one elf, however, you would get: The one-armed man says, 'blah' The elf says, 'blah' Of course, managing this is a bit trickier than it first seems. Still torn on how far I want to take this. I'm definitely interested in minimizing unnecessary clutter (like, who gives a damn if the elf has green-eyes?) but on the other hand I don't want to rob too much detail, and I definitely do not want to make it so that you can't tell anyone apart without looking at each one to determine their special traits (== keywords). > Yes but as someone else pointed out, they'd end up with a load of poles > sticking out of the ground. The mud has no concept of telephone poles and > even if the player named them as being telephone poles, only she would seem > them as such. That was me. Yup, if people want to make a row of posts, who am I to stop them? Of course, the tree-hugger ranger might happen by and not like it too much... </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="01462" HREF="msg01462.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> caliban#darklock,com (Caliban Tiresias Darklock)</li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="01408" HREF="msg01408.html">[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Maddy <maddy#fysh,org></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01431.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is suppo</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01433.html">[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is suppo</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01414.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01462.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#01432"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#01432"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] more classes (Usability and interface and who the hell is suppo)</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="01490" HREF="msg01490.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] more classes (Usability and interface and who the hell is suppo)</A></strong>, Matt Chatterley <a href="mailto:root#mpc,dyn.ml.org">root#mpc,dyn.ml.org</a>, Fri 26 Sep 1997, 14:52 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="01497" HREF="msg01497.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] more classes (Usability and interface and who the hell is suppo)</A></strong>, Marian Griffith <a href="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">gryphon#iaehv,nl</a>, Fri 26 Sep 1997, 18:38 GMT </LI> </ul> </ul> </ul> <LI><strong><A NAME="01408" HREF="msg01408.html">[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</A></strong>, Maddy <a href="mailto:maddy#fysh,org">maddy#fysh,org</a>, Wed 24 Sep 1997, 10:42 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01414" HREF="msg01414.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</A></strong>, Broly <a href="mailto:broly#mail,bcpl.lib.md.us">broly#mail,bcpl.lib.md.us</a>, Wed 24 Sep 1997, 17:21 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="01432" HREF="msg01432.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:nightfall#user1,inficad.com">nightfall#user1,inficad.com</a>, Thu 25 Sep 1997, 07:27 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01462" HREF="msg01462.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</A></strong>, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Thu 25 Sep 1997, 23:28 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01498" HREF="msg01498.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</A></strong>, Marian Griffith <a href="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">gryphon#iaehv,nl</a>, Fri 26 Sep 1997, 18:38 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01508" HREF="msg01508.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</A></strong>, Matt Chatterley <a href="mailto:root#mpc,dyn.ml.org">root#mpc,dyn.ml.org</a>, Sat 27 Sep 1997, 10:21 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="01526" HREF="msg01526.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)</A></strong>, Broly <a href="mailto:gunther#online1,magnus1.com">gunther#online1,magnus1.com</a>, Mon 29 Sep 1997, 03:20 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>