Hi all, I was wondering if theres been a release on here of a modern mud. With guns and such. I played a mud a long while back called slugs, and liked the concept, though i normally run rom and godwars.
Guns create all kinds of problems with the combat system in a text-only medium; text just doesn't give you detailed enough spatial information, or allow sufficiently fine control of movement, to make ranged combat work well. I think that's one reason why many MUDs prefer a fantasy/mediaeval setting - it's an excuse to make most of the combat hand-to-hand!
Guns create all kinds of problems with the combat system in a text-only medium; text just doesn't give you detailed enough spatial information, or allow sufficiently fine control of movement, to make ranged combat work well.
The spatial problems aren't due to text, they're due to the room-based model used by most text muds. Use that same room-based approach in a graphical game and you'd have the exactly the same problems.
02 Oct, 2009, Ssolvarain wrote in the 9th comment:
Guns create all kinds of problems with the combat system in a text-only medium; text just doesn't give you detailed enough spatial information, or allow sufficiently fine control of movement, to make ranged combat work well. I think that's one reason why many MUDs prefer a fantasy/mediaeval setting - it's an excuse to make most of the combat hand-to-hand!
I include guns in my codebase and find that this is not really so problematic. For in-room combat I just use a combination of stat bonuses, skill level, and luck to determine if a given shot hit its target…just like with swords and such.
The main trouble I've had with in-room gunplay is that it's pretty hard to make things combat-challenging when firearms are in use. While there *is* an accuracy penalty for squeezing off as many shots as possible as quickly as possible, the crushing injuries caused by just a few hits tend to severely unbalance any conflict.
And cranking down the damage done by firearms seems cheaty and not-right.
I've heard that there are Star Wars and Star Trek muds out there, and I've been told that they handle such stuff by simply making blasters and phasers swords with different names. Like, "Stormtrooper misses you. You hit stormtrooper hard with your blaster." That is entirely unsatisfactory to me. If I hit someone with, say, a phaser, I expect them to turn green and disappear.
This, I guess, speaks to the "consistency" issues in a nearby thread. Even if you mix up genres within your mud, making advanced weaponry available may tend to abolish the use of more traditional melee stuff.
KaVir said:
The spatial problems aren't due to text, they're due to the room-based model used by most text muds. Use that same room-based approach in a graphical game and you'd have the exactly the same problems.
I'm working on mitigating this with a grid based system that allocates persistent coordinates to rooms when they load. The idea is that at some point I'm going to implement ranged naval combat (it's pretty silly to have to have ships be in the same room to fight) and I'll need a system for determining the spatial relationships between combatants in different rooms.
While a roomless mud like GW2 probably makes this easier to implement and more consistent an experience, I think it's definitely doable in a traditional roomed mud, with a bit of fudging.
I include guns in my codebase and find that this is not really so problematic. For in-room combat I just use a combination of stat bonuses, skill level, and luck to determine if a given shot hit its target…just like with swords and such.
In-room gunfights aren't such a problem - the tricky part is when you want people fighting across rooms, because then you need to start worrying about things like movement speed (for charging someone who's shooting you), line of sight, etc. Of course it is possible, but if you've already got a room-based mud the chances are you'll have to do a lot of redesigning to integrate it seamlessly with the existing combat, and you'll most likely end up emulating a roomless system (which gets this sort of feature for "free").
Cratylus said:
The main trouble I've had with in-room gunplay is that it's pretty hard to make things combat-challenging when firearms are in use. While there *is* an accuracy penalty for squeezing off as many shots as possible as quickly as possible, the crushing injuries caused by just a few hits tend to severely unbalance any conflict.
Isn't that more of a problem with modern/futuristic themes though? I mean I agree that if I shot you with a phaser you should probably go splat - but the same would be true I hit you with lightsabre. On the other hand, in a fantasy setting is it really much worse to be shot with an arrow as opposed to being hit over the head with a battleaxe?
I'm not sure what style of guns you support, but wouldn't it make sense to provide appropriate armour to counter them? A kevlar vest, or a battlesuit, or a breastplate, or whatever.
Also: Guns don't kill people. I kill people. With guns.
Of course it is possible, but if you've already got a room-based mud the chances are you'll have to do a lot of redesigning to integrate it seamlessly with the existing combat, and you'll most likely end up emulating a roomless system (which gets this sort of feature for "free").
Yep, it definitely takes a lot of tinkering and fudgery. I imagine that's why it's not so commonly done.
KaVir said:
Isn't that more of a problem with modern/futuristic themes though? I mean I agree that if I shot you with a phaser you should probably go splat - but the same would be true I hit you with lightsabre. On the other hand, in a fantasy setting is it really much worse to be shot with an arrow as opposed to being hit over the head with a battleaxe?
I'm actually a bit curious how SW muds handle lightsabers, if they do. They seem insta-sever/insta-kill weapons if they connect.
KaVir said:
I'm not sure what style of guns you support, but wouldn't it make sense to provide appropriate armour to counter them? A kevlar vest, or a battlesuit, or a breastplate, or whatever.
Yeh, there's "ballistic" armor that provides high protection from "piercing" damage like bullets. And there's always magic anti-missile spells and wards that can be used, if genres are mixed!
I suppose the problem I'm envisioning is readily enough countered by experienced players (if they're the target), but it's hard to imagine a good excuse for lots of NPC's being bullet resistant. I've yet to test what things look like in low or medium level areas if guns are readily accessible…but my guess is it's probably a near-instant massacre limited only by how much ammo is available, which doesn't sound very fun.
Makes sense in, say, a zombie themed mud, or a battlefield themed mud, but in a typical Larstown/Midgaard non-pk type mud, it seems likely to bring imbalance and unfun.
Yeh, there's "ballistic" armor that provides high protection from "piercing" damage like bullets.
Out of interest, do you distinguish between bullets and other piercing weapons, such as stilettos and rapiers?
Cratylus said:
I suppose the problem I'm envisioning is readily enough countered by experienced players (if they're the target), but it's hard to imagine a good excuse for lots of NPC's being bullet resistant.
Well it depends on the NPCs really, but I don't think it's unreasonable for big monstrous creatures (such as dragons and undead and the like) to survive multiple bullet wounds, and if guns are really that common then it would make sense for intelligent creatures (such as humans) to wear the appropriate protection.
If guns are too powerful then you could always try to balance it out as an alternative to magic (a bit like The Darksword Trilogy) - perhaps the two disrupt each other, so players can only use one or the other. You could also make gunpowder particularly rare, expensive and/or dangerous to use, at which point it shouldn't be much different (balance-wise) to a magic wand of fireballs.
Of course if you're introducing guns into a fully developed game, then it's most likely going to require a lot of work to update and rebalance all of the existing mobs.
Yeh, there's "ballistic" armor that provides high protection from "piercing" damage like bullets.
Out of interest, do you distinguish between bullets and other piercing weapons, such as stilettos and rapiers?
Yeh, there are bitset damage types that a weapon can have, so a javelin would tend to be PIERCE whether thrown or thrusted, and a stiletto might be PIERCE|KNIFE.
KaVir said:
Cratylus said:
I suppose the problem I'm envisioning is readily enough countered by experienced players (if they're the target), but it's hard to imagine a good excuse for lots of NPC's being bullet resistant.
Well it depends on the NPCs really, but I don't think it's unreasonable for big monstrous creatures (such as dragons and undead and the like) to survive multiple bullet wounds
What assault did that made gunfights interesting was that it allowed to shoot around wildly in the room, shoot in one direction, or establish a target lock. If someone walks into the same room and starts shooting you'd walk out and fire in the direction you came from, if someone establishes a lock you're generally dead - unless you walk into the same room and start shooting, walk out of range, or drop a bomb. When someone is trying to establish a lock it takes several seconds during which they can't fire, enough time to kill someone as well.
Roomless muds have the disadvantage that movement is typically irrelevant, so combat becomes a matter of targeting someone and blasting away, rather than an exciting game of hide, seek, guns, and explosives.
02 Oct, 2009, Ssolvarain wrote in the 18th comment:
1) Blasters from Star Wars fire a burst of energy known as a blaster bolt, usually a burning plasma projectile. They don't work like lasers.
I don't think I stated otherwise.
Zenn said:
2) In Star Trek, you can take a hit from a phaser or disruptor and still not keel over, turning green and poofing into smoke.
It depends on the setting. On max kill, humanoid targets do indeed tend to disintegrate in TOS and TNG. Can't vouch for DS9, since I never much watched it and there was a mix of non-Federation tech there.
My point was not about phaser settings, but about the extreme imbalance of a one-shot one-kill weapon being a standard arm.
I was wondering if theres been a release on here of a modern mud. With guns and such.
I played a mud a long while back called slugs, and liked the concept, though i normally
run rom and godwars.