Err.. but… that's what he said…? "I doubt there's a logical reason" were his exact words, I think that my paraphrasing was quite fair. (I didn't use the literal quote box – had I used single quotation marks, would you have been happy?) He didn't seem to disagree with my interpretation, in any case – maybe you should let him object if he feels I incorrectly characterized his position. I'm sure he's more than capable of defending himself. :smile:

As I said, any mud "barring themes that provide a solid reason for why equipment is lost". Few themes can justify such a reason, as quitting is usually considered an OOC acivity. Although in retrospect, I suppose most muds don't really have a theme anyway.

But if the mud is trying to create a consistant theme (which many do) then I think equipment persistance should be tied into that theme, even if it's not a roleplaying mud.

Do FPS games not have consistent themes? What about games in which you have a character (with stat development etc.) that can join games, starting with no equipment?

Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by "theme"; I take it to mean the back-story, genre, story-line, world description, etc. E.g., "this is a LotR MUD", "this is a Star Wars MUD", "this is a steam-punk MUD". Do you mean something more?

No.
There are courses one can take to improve one's skills in recognizing the logical differences between statements like "I doubt there's a logical reason" v. "no logical reason".

I suppose we'll simply have to disagree on this one, Tyche. :shrug: Did you have something else to say about the topic, or are you going to turn this thread into another let's-bash-David's-posts fiesta?

Well I used to play a mud with no eq save that would reboot once a day,
so not only did you need to sell all before quitting, you needed to
know when the next reboot was so you wouldn't find yourself too far
from a shop when armageddon came!

I remember from that time that shops were a total gyp. They'd
pay you half an item's value, but sell it to you at full price. If
you wanted nice equipment when you logged back in, you had to
get it the hard way or get gouged. I guess maybe that helped
control inflation…I dunno. Past a certain level you'd amass so
much money that you could buy most anything you wanted, but the eq in
the shop wasn't necessarily the quality of stuff you needed to
face the kind of monsters that were in your league.

I do remember that the price gouging and logging in naked made
me develop a routine for getting in the game…run to grab the
components for the teleport ring, kill increasingly tough guys
to trade up armor (and profit from the old armor), til finally
after about 20 minutes or so I was at my standard build and also
"in the zone", warmed up and ready for serious challenges.

It was a kind of warm up exercise…a familiar series of actions
that were rewarding both in in-game outcome and also for the
comfort that ritual brings.

I think you can see that as being an annoying waste of time,
and maybe these days I'd think that too, but I can't say I
doubt there's a logical reason. That people like it is logical enough.

I think the FPS comparison is apt. You spawn naked (for practical purposes)
then get in the zone trying to eq up.

TBH I don't think it's any more or less artificial than
wounds that heal with heavy drinking and being able to quit
*at all*. They're just game tropes that come with the territory,
and you pick among them to suit your preference.

I remember playing early versions of "America's Army", a game
that tried to depict "realistic" combat. Man it was dull.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

Most FPS games I can think of do, but the same isn't so frequently true of muds, many of which tend to have areas such as the shire alongside the smurf village, or the gnome daycare centre a short walk from a Judge Dread zone, etc. Admittedly that's a pretty Diku-centric view, but it does still cover quite a large number of muds.


It depends on the game. I can't think of any computer games (off the top of my head) where you literally start play naked, though. Most either give you some starting gear, or (more often) don't explicitly have clothes as equipment. Instead, you see clothing (sometimes even weapons) as part of your "default" character.

But then, most other games tend to have a far more basic equipment system than muds - and many muds do have clothing as equipment you can pick up (although most don't let you layer equipment, so you end up wearing clothing or armour, but not both…but that's a different issue).

As I said, if you don't have explicit clothes then fair enough. But if the mud does have clothing as specific items you can wear, then I interpret that as meaning that if I don't have any such items, I'm naked. As an aside, on my mud I do actually describe people as being naked if they're not wearing anything.


No, that's what I mean. In Star Wars some of the alien races could probably get away with walking around naked, but most of the human-like ones would likely draw attention.

Heh a while back I suddenly realized the weirdness of "implicit"
clothing when I happened upon a particular wearable item that
resulted one's appearance looking like:

The very notion makes me shudder. I haven't played a MUD like that so far; it would drive me nuts to have hodgepodge themes unless the hodgepodgeness was very deliberate and indeed the theme itself (such as some kind of interdimensional vortex or whatever).


Ah, ok then. So you are saying that if the MUD explicitly represents clothing, then removing it means that the character is indeed to be interpreted as naked (or in underwear or whatever). That's fair enough then.

Still, one could say that clothing can be used to customize your character beyond basic, plain clothes. So people can be assumed to always wear something fairly uninteresting, but they can put on a tropical shirt if they're feeling festive, or perhaps a ceremonial uniform if they're doing something formal.

I've not encountered healing through drinking, unless you mean potions - but those are generally classified as magical (and therefore 'realistic' within the setting).

Being able to quit is artificial, I agree. But it's not an easy issue to resolve from a game design perspective, and you can generally just imagine that offline players are "somewhere else" in the world without having to think too much about it.

But saving equipment is a simple solution, and naked people are a bit more difficult to ignore than people who aren't there - particularly when you're one of those naked people, and you find yourself naked every time you connect. I find it makes it more difficult to overlook the offline time as well, because I end up wondering what exactly my character was doing that he ended up stripping naked yet again :tongue:

Okay so it's not a gamebreaker, but I still find it detracts from the immersion. On TMS there's someone defending the idea for "purely roleplay and style reasons". I find that really quite silly. I don't see how it improves roleplay to have lots of spontaneously naked people running around, unless you've got some sort of adult theme.


You could, but even then IMO it would be nicer (from a consistency perspective) to give the players actual default clothing.

lol 1: i'm still banned from tms

lol 2: threshold

lol 3: the webpage you quoted was for the mud i used to play!

I'm actually a wizard/creator/builder/coder there now. :)

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

Huh…I'd thought drunk healing was kinda common. Is it really
unusual around here?

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

I agree that defending the equipment-removing policy for roleplay reasons is pretty silly. In fact, if you were to actually roleplay these things, you'd get characters "waking up" every day wondering, as you said, what exactly happened last night. :wink:


You mean like if nothing is worn on the shirt slot, to sub in "a plain shirt" or something? Yes, that would be nicer, and would avoid problems like what Crat showed.


Haven't seen it on MUDs I've played, at least.

I brought it up to Threshold because I just do not see it as maintaining my immersion in a role-play environment.

I also feel that part of the issue may deal with the part of the gamer in me that is an "achiever", and another part that is a "socializer". The achiever part wants that suit of armor that no one else has, the sword that casts fire 20% of the time and the lockpicks that allow me to open almost any lock. The socializer in me likes to find, make, and buy items that suite how I picture my character. If he is known to wear a certain cloak, he wants to wear that cloak.

I also enjoy games with player-character crafting. Why spend weeks getting to the point of being able to make a master set of items, and then spend 3 hours gathering materials and crafting them every time I log in? I would not find that enjoyable.

I can certainly understand designing a game that is meant to enforce a no equpment save as part of a feature set. I just do not see such systems as conducive to the types of role-play (and game play) that Ienjoy. As I told him, it is a personal preference.

It was certainly part of standard LP mudlibs back in the day (e.g. the original LP 2.4.5) - being drunk meant you healed 4 hp per tick instead of 1, and strong drinks had an up-front healing-potion effect as well.

My MUD has it. It's why each of the Guild Halls in Midgaard had someone serving drinks.

KaVir, back to the original post…
I don't think there is any viable reason to 'nakify' (and yes I made that up ;p) people on quit. Obviously it doesn't make sense in an RP world, and it would just frustrate the hell out of Hack/Slash/Min/Maxers.

As far as a 'sink', there are other options. Make healing better in rooms specifically for it, and charge entrance. Allow people to purchase player homes and furnishings. Have banks charge a percentage. Have humanoid pets charge wages. Require upkeep of armor and weapons. etc etc. Or, make the poor villager NOT have 500 gold coins on him ;p.

I know myself, when I find something unique in a game… that's cool. If I log out and it's always gone… Well, there is something to be said for your progress in a game being saved. A lot actually. Otherwise there isn't that personal investment in the game, it's just 'drop in a quarter and play'.

I think that's kind of exactly the idea of rent-based systems, isn't it? The rent is basically the upkeep. (And yeah, rent is different from simply removing it.)

Rent is usually a deal breaker for me, when trying a new MUD out. It takes something special about the MUD for me to resist the urge to leave yet another of my bastardized characters to rot on someone's hard drive.

The way equipment persistence is handled can have a significant balance impact.

Besides unique items that can be kept out of the game by players, there is also hording. Then there is the thing that its silly to expect that every player should have the very best equipment they can afford/use all the time.

Experience tells that those things definitely happen on a mud that has complete equipment persistance, unless specific measures are implemented to prevent this. On some muds that is not a problem at all, on others it can be a major problem, completely depending on the game itself.

Beyond that, games are for fun. Whatever provides for that fun is different for each game, and even for each player of a game (edit: and doesn't at all depend on 'reality'). For you immersion may be of major importance, for others it is not.

For many years I've been player and later admin on a mud that has very limited 'rent' possibilities. This basicly meant that obtaining equipment was an important part of the game, it also happened to be a rather fun part of the game (and no, it didn't get boring after the 3rd or even 3000th time because of an insane amount of variety).

At any rate, I think you have your mind set on having full equipment persistance, which is really fine, I happen to prefer it as well and implemented it on my own mud (which incidentely is an lpmud). However, my personal preference is not a very good argument for why this is how it should be for almost all muds, and neither is your preference..

You'd do better to investigate what your target audience wants, and cater to them. Oh, and when asked, they'll always want things to stay, and also for you to give them the most advanced powerful char possible.. so you need to investigate, not just ask.