<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) --> <!--X-From-R13: Qnyvona Fverfvnf Rnexybpx <pnyvonaNqnexybpx.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 02:41:35 -0700 --> <!--X-Message-Id: 4.1.19990603154241.00be28a0#pop,darklock.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 4.1.19990602230413.00bf99a0#pop,darklock.com --> <!--X-Reference: 199906030220.TAA15991#proxy3,ba.best.com --> <!--X-Reference: 199906030832.BAA28492#proxy3,ba.best.com --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:caliban#darklock,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="msg00476.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00478.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00559.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00495.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00477">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00477">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00477">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</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>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Caliban Tiresias Darklock <<A HREF="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Fri, 04 Jun 1999 02:36:07 -0700</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Sender</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu">mud-dev-admin#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 01:22 AM 6/3/99 -0700, I personally witnessed Matthew Mihaly jumping up to say: > >How many of you actually enjoy playing your games, > or even playing a significant aspect of yours? *raises his hand* *waving hands frantically* Ultimate Universe ROCKS. That's why I tracked down the author and paid him way too much money for the development rights. ;) I do have someone right now giving me input on how much harder things are than they look. Just like you say watching experts in your game fight is cool, watching an expert on mine go through it is just as cool -- but the reality of playing is quite different, as this friend of mine is discovering! Sure, you know all the commands, you have a kick-ass macro set, you know precisely how to react to everything. But what about the next guy? He sat there and watched me rack up hundreds of millions of credits, outfit my ship with all kinds of really neato-cool stuff, and proceed to run roughshod over the enemy until I established a daily salary in excess of a quarter billion credits a day... and now he's sitting at this prompt thinking "damn, it sure looked easy when HE did it" and wondering where to start. Learning curve. Compress it. Make it shallow. Make it long, but make it shallow. Personally, I'd like the learning curve to have a height approaching zero and a length approaching infinity -- you *always* know what you're doing, but you can also *always* get better at it. >You have >no idea what a rush proper fighting is. You really really do not. Check out the documentation at www.ultimate-universe.com/uu-docs.html, and consider the implications. Download the UUSTART texts -- especially UUSTART4, which is about PvP especially. Download the UUHELP.ZIP archive and read the help files. The pure richness of this game is nothing short of awe-inspiring. Sure, fighting is simple, but it's just on a different level. You're welcome to download UU204.ZIP and REGISTER.ZIP and run it locally, if you're under some form of Windows. This version is a DOS program, last modified in 1995, and it needs a better description of how to get it up and running -- SYSOP.DOC is the best we currently have. Migrating it into Windows/internet operation instead of DOS/modem is taking a loooonng time; I have very little of that running aside from a very boring telnet server which just prints some diagnostics based on what keypresses you send. File handling for legacy data is in the works, but a long way from done. Here's a basic example, dealing primarily with the idea of how you enter that fight to begin with. You can place several devices on your ship (16-32 in most games; maximum limited to 40 at present, but increasing to 64 in next major release). You may choose to place a device called a "Hyper Swap" there. This device allows you to swap the contents of an extradimensional space with some of your existing ship's contents. This allows you to have two "modes" of operation. A common idea is to load up the extradimensional space with weapons, and then swap it with your "peaceful" devices before entering a hostile sector. As a result, you only have lots of weapons taking up space in your ship when you actually need them. But that sector may contain a device called a "hyperswap trigger", which will swap the devices BACK when you enter. You could, of course, get a scanner that will reveal it -- and seeing the hyperswap trigger, you just leave your hyperswap on the peaceful devices, double-bluffing the hyperswap trigger into loading your weaponry. But you'll need to scan the sector before you enter, and the sector *may* also contain a sector reflector -- which, when you scan the sector, will show you some OTHER sector instead. The reflected sector, of course, probably doesn't have a hyperswap trigger. It *could*, instead, contain something very interesting and innocuous which would lure you into charging straight into the sector. (In such a case, the sector you're entering wouldn't want to have a hyperswap trigger, since it would likely just load up your weapons. But the reflector alone could trap you into wandering straight into the sector's battle forces.) Or, if the owner just wanted to make a "keep out" sign, he could instead point the sector reflector at a sector with something exceedingly nasty in it. (Like a black hole, which there is no TRULY effective defense against -- certainly, you can get a galvanic catapult which will allow you to escape from a black hole's gravitational pull, but such devices still have a 7% failure rate. Black holes can be created, but not destroyed, so it is possible for a universe to be eventually filled with enough black holes that it's functionally useless. Realistically, this doesn't tend to happen.) But, of course, there exists the sector reflector detector (one of my favorite device names for pure linguistic charm)! And, since navigation is so important to a spacefaring culture... sector reflectors are illegal. So if you have such a detector, you can report the offending sector to the authorities, who will then charge the sector reflector's owner a large fine *and* remove the sector reflector later. Then you can see what's really in the sector... provided you get there before the owner has installed another sector reflector, which may very well happen, but even then you can just report him again. And I haven't even gone into sensor dampers, navigator negators, autopilot snares, port locators, planetary devices, mine launchers, toll stations... all told, there are over five hundred devices. Individually, these are useful. In combination, they're nearly infinite in possibility. It's between 508!-468! and 508^40 (or 508**40, or pow(508,40), or whatever you prefer). Yeah, for a basic example, the above is pretty complex... but really, it *is* a basic example in the context of this game! >I'm not trying to brag. I'm >fully confident of the quality of my combat system, because frankly I >_love_ fighting in Achaea. It is not a game. it is a sport. Well, see, I don't like sports. They strike me as rather pointless and boring. That's why I spent so much time on my computer to begin with; all the other kids wanted to play football and basketball and baseball and all these team-oriented things. It is worth noting that Ultimate Universe uses a concept of commodities brokering to gain funds. The single biggest complaint about this is that it's very tedious and very time-consuming. The only alternative is to work on behalf of the government, tracking down and destroying enemy forces. You're rewarded more richly for this, but it's expensive *and* dangerous *and* tedious. You literally *must* begin the game by trading commodities; just like in most combat MUDs, you *must* begin by running around and killing a bunch of weak monsters. This is the sort of thing that's high on my list of "things to fix". While you can do any number of very interesting things to achieve a nearly infinite variety of goals, you MUST begin by wandering from port to port buying and selling tons of raw materials. That sort of single-point-of-entry offends me on a basic level. You should experience the richness and variety of the world immediately, as soon as you enter it. Right now, there's a period of time you *must* spend "paying your dues". Once you have a good understanding of the game, this period of time lasts less than twenty minutes with a new ship. But your first login? It's just not obvious enough. And to make matters worse, maybe you haven't even been told of this POSSIBILITY yet... the only thing you're *guaranteed* to be told on entering the game is that the galaxy is at war and you're supposed to help out. But you're too *weak* to help out. I'm thinking about a new way to handle this initial period; if you start out capable only of trading, maybe that's acceptable -- if you're told that UP FRONT. Taking over someone else's development has good points and bad points. Sure, you know you have product, but you also inherit all of its bugs and ideosyncracies... for better or worse. >Sorry if this sounds self-promoting. It's not meant to be. It should be. If you're not proud of what you're building, why build it? Self-promote all to hell, my friend! Be proud! Be vocal! Sure, I don't think *I'd* like it, but I can appreciate your pride in it! Hell, you probably think the same thing about my stuff! :) >I just hear most of the >posters here talking as if certain things are a given (like player vs. >player combat being crap), and frankly outside of Achaea and Avalon, I have >never seen a combat system that even compares in terms of the rush. I always find that combat systems are more tedium than excitement. I prefer to go for suspense. And I haven't even *mentioned* the availability of SHIP defenses... you think taking a *sector* is tough? Heh. Heh heh heh heh. Dead man switches, trap door retreats, device bay missiles, device chameleons, homing signal jammers, surveillance feedback emitters... and my personal favorite, EXPLOSIVE SHIP DECOYS! BWAHAHAHAHAHA! ----- | Caliban Tiresias Darklock caliban#darklock,com | Darklock Communications <A HREF="http://www.darklock.com/">http://www.darklock.com/</A> | U L T I M A T E U N I V E R S E I S N O T D E A D | 774577496C6C6E457645727355626D4974H -=CABAL::3146=- _______________________________________________ MUD-Dev maillist - MUD-Dev#kanga,nu <A HREF="http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev">http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev</A> </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="00495" HREF="msg00495.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Matthew Mihaly <diablo#best,com></li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00444" HREF="msg00444.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban#darklock,com></LI></UL></LI> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00437" HREF="msg00437.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Matthew Mihaly <sarapis#achaea,com></LI></UL></LI> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00454" HREF="msg00454.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Matthew Mihaly <sarapis#achaea,com></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00476.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00478.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00559.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00495.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00477"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00477"><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] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00546" HREF="msg00546.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></strong>, Matthew Mihaly <a href="mailto:diablo#best,com">diablo#best,com</a>, Sun 06 Jun 1999, 19:22 GMT </LI> </ul> <LI><strong><A NAME="00522" HREF="msg00522.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></strong>, Darren Henderson <a href="mailto:darren#jasper,somtel.com">darren#jasper,somtel.com</a>, Sat 05 Jun 1999, 03:10 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00549" HREF="msg00549.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></strong>, Matthew Mihaly <a href="mailto:diablo#best,com">diablo#best,com</a>, Sun 06 Jun 1999, 19:47 GMT <LI><strong><A NAME="00559" HREF="msg00559.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></strong>, Darren Henderson <a href="mailto:darren#jasper,somtel.com">darren#jasper,somtel.com</a>, Mon 07 Jun 1999, 03:30 GMT </LI> </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> </ul> </ul> </ul> <LI><strong><A NAME="00477" HREF="msg00477.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></strong>, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Fri 04 Jun 1999, 09:41 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00495" HREF="msg00495.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></strong>, Matthew Mihaly <a href="mailto:diablo#best,com">diablo#best,com</a>, Fri 04 Jun 1999, 21:23 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> <LI><strong><A NAME="00457" HREF="msg00457.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></strong>, Greg Miller <a href="mailto:gmiller#classic-games,com">gmiller#classic-games,com</a>, Thu 03 Jun 1999, 16:00 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00465" HREF="msg00465.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></strong>, Matthew Mihaly <a href="mailto:sarapis#achaea,com">sarapis#achaea,com</a>, Thu 03 Jun 1999, 21:40 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> <LI><strong><A NAME="00456" HREF="msg00456.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)</A></strong>, Greg Miller <a href="mailto:gmiller#classic-games,com">gmiller#classic-games,com</a>, Thu 03 Jun 1999, 16:00 GMT </LI> </ul> </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>