<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play --> <!--X-From-R13: X Q Znjerapr <pynjNhaqre.rate.ftv.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 14:08:10 -0700 --> <!--X-Message-Id: 199805192107.OAA03207#under,engr.sgi.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: Pine.BSF.3.96.980517221707.26074C-100000#dillinger,io.com --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, [MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:claw#under,engr.sgi.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="msg00716.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00718.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00650.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00719.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00717">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00717">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00717">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play </LI> <LI><em>From</em>: J C Lawrence <<A HREF="mailto:claw#under,engr.sgi.com">claw#under,engr.sgi.com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Tue, 19 May 1998 14:07:47 -0700</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Sender</em>: "Petidomo List Agent -- Kanga.Nu version" <<A HREF="mailto:petidomo#kanga,nu">petidomo#kanga,nu</A>></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> On Sun, 17 May 1998 22:17:57 -0500 (CDT) Travis S Casey<efindel#io,com> wrote: > On Friday, 15 May 98, J C Lawrence wrote: >> It is this point which ghas persuaded me to almost entirely move >> away from round based combat. I refuse to place the entire game >> and all players on a pacing clock (humans shall not wait for >> machines), but not using a global clock while using usably long >> combat rounds opens the combat system for all sorts of interesting >> abuse due to the inconsistant time scales. ...deletia... > A true round-based combat system is difficult to implement on a mud > for one reason: there's no easy way to tell if a player is still > there or not. In a paper RPG, if a player has to get up and go to > the bathroom, the other players and the GM will definitely notice > that the player is leaving, and can then either choose to wait or to > have someone else decide what that PC will do while the player is > gone. On a mud, it's not that simple. > It would be easy to add an "auto" command for players who have to go > for a few minutes but want to stay in the fight -- "auto" would tell > the game to autopilot your character. When you returned, entering > any command would take your character off autopilot. > The problem then becomes one with careless players or players who > are suffering extreme lag or lose their connection. A lost > connection isn't too hard to handle -- many muds already have > methods for handling them. However, to handle the other two cases, > there needs to be some kind of timeout -- if a reasonably long time > goes by without a certain player entering a command, then the mud > would need to either put that character on autopilot or handle it > like a lost connection. > This eliminates (or at least seriously reduces) the advantage to > "fast twitch" players, those who use scripting, and those who can > type fast. The problem is that it is still dependant on a "combat state". I have utterly failed to determine any sort of pattern which can be used to determine when a combat state actually should be incepted, which actions pertain to combat and which don't, and when a combat state should be closed. It gets even messier for multi-character and multi-ranged (Bubba is firing arrows from the other side of the river, Boffo is hacking with a sword, and Bernie is doing his thing with the fireballs thru the magical portal) combats. >> Opening the combat to being entirely untimed conversely allows spam >> attacks and tends to guarantee that the fastest twitch will win. >> Not good. Further, as discussed earlier, I can't distinguish >> between combat and non-combat commands as even utterly innocuous >> commands will be used heavily in combat ("drop mana consumers"), >> and very combat-centric commands will be used peacibly (cf UggUgg's >> fight).. >> I don't have a good design. The best I can think of so far is: >> -- No first blows are fatal. > Why not? I can see why you'd want first blows to be rarely fatal, > but why never? It removes the possibility for a player to react to his attack as I also don't pre-announce incoming attacks (its not possible to always determine what is or is not an attack). > Also, how do you define a first blow? The first blow since the > character entered the room? A blow suffered when the character is > uninjured? A blow delivered by someone who hasn't attacked you > since you logged on? This is one of the very many reasons I don't like the current idea. My rough idea is that a "first blow" is defined as "action which is computed to be a direct attack, first of its type on the target within X time." X is thought to be on the order of 2 RL minutes. > There may be easier ways to do this... for example, how about a > damage system which works like this: > Every character has three stats related to damage: Resilience, Size, > and Accumulated Damage. When a blow is suffered, the character > makes a check on Resilience against the amount of Accumulated Damage > he/she had *before* the blow landed. If the check is failed, the > character dies. If the check succeeds, the character adds the > amount of damage taken to his/her Accumulated Damage. However, each > character has a limit to how much Accumulated Damage he/she can > take: Resilience multiplied by Size. If Accumulated Damage passes > this point, the character dies, even if he/she did not fail a check. > The linchpin of this system is the Resilience check against > Accumulated Damage. You can set this up to provide many different > possibilities: for example, you might choose to set it up so that a > character who had no Accumulated Damage can't fail the check. In > that case, the only way to kill an undamaged character with one blow > would be to do more than his/her Resilience * Size in a single blow. > Features of this system: - The chance of death, barring massive > amounts of damage, depends on what Accumulated Damage was *before* > the blow. Hence, you can better control how likely someone is to > die from a first blow. <ponder> I like this. It removes the logic by adding a curve who far end (the insta-kill) is almost asymptotic. it would take little to make it very nearly asymptotic to infinity. Cute. Adopted. Thanks. >> -- Arrange these probabilities appropriately to force most combats >> to the 15 - 20 seconds point. > Is that 15-20 seconds of game time or real time? RL. I'd go for shorter except that I want the chance for careful and correct reactions to be able to be significant. I don't want a point-and-shoot combat style. I also don't want a pure chess-approach. Something a bit in the middle, but closer to hack. -- J C Lawrence Internet: claw#null,net (Contractor) Internet: coder#ibm,net ---------(*) Internet: claw#under,engr.sgi.com ...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith... -- MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future. </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="00719" HREF="msg00719.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> "D. B. Brown" <dbrown1#stny,lrun.com></li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00650" HREF="msg00650.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> "Travis S. Casey" <efindel#io,com></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00716.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: MURKLE: Wot it is</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00718.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Mudschool</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00650.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00719.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00717"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00717"><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>[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00648" HREF="msg00648.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></strong>, Travis S. Casey <a href="mailto:efindel#io,com">efindel#io,com</a>, Sun 17 May 1998, 21:15 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00671" HREF="msg00671.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Mon 18 May 1998, 19:56 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00733" HREF="msg00733.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#under,engr.sgi.com">claw#under,engr.sgi.com</a>, Wed 20 May 1998, 18:45 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00650" HREF="msg00650.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></strong>, Travis S. Casey <a href="mailto:efindel#io,com">efindel#io,com</a>, Sun 17 May 1998, 21:15 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00717" HREF="msg00717.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#under,engr.sgi.com">claw#under,engr.sgi.com</a>, Tue 19 May 1998, 21:08 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00719" HREF="msg00719.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></strong>, D. B. Brown <a href="mailto:dbrown1#stny,lrun.com">dbrown1#stny,lrun.com</a>, Tue 19 May 1998, 22:04 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00838" HREF="msg00838.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Tue 26 May 1998, 22:56 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00691" HREF="msg00691.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></strong>, John Bertoglio <a href="mailto:alexb#internetcds,com">alexb#internetcds,com</a>, Tue 19 May 1998, 06:42 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00712" HREF="msg00712.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play</A></strong>, Ling <a href="mailto:K.L.Lo-94#student,lboro.ac.uk">K.L.Lo-94#student,lboro.ac.uk</a>, Tue 19 May 1998, 19:46 GMT </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>