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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 07/05/2008 : 14:41:42 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
I suppose I should have put the phrase "denial of service" in bold. As far as I know, that is only used in reference to hacking/cracking techniques, not RPG games. |
I'm talking about real life. Yes, "denial of service attacks" are rather unique to computers, but people have been experiencing denials of service since long before the first "no shirt, no shoes, no service" sign went up in a store.| What I have wanted to see for a long time was injuries. You got hit in the left hand with a hammer? You aren't going to be using that two-handed sword for a while. |
That's a good one. It's been my experience that players get some good weapon, and then stick with it until something better comes along, only carrying extra weapons long enough to sell them off. At least with two-handed weapons, injury provides a way to force the player to go to a backup weapon (as would a weapon breaking from overuse). Along the same lines, make the player pick leftie or rightie when starting out, and make "Ambidexterity" a high-level skill (a rightie who's using a weapon leftie due to injury would get significant negs to-hit and damage).Shot in the leg with an arrow? Don't try fleeing. Even more detailed would be that a strike to the face or gut delays your next move. Call of Duty 4 does this sort of where if you fall a ways, you don't move fast at first but recover quite quickly.
It does of course make things, perhaps unnecessarily, more complex.
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As long as the players don't have to do much, it wouldn't be so bad. For example, at any slow time, they could specify what their backup weapon will be, and the game would automatically switch to it as needed. The game would also switch hands, drop a shield, or limp as required. It'd make the coding more complex, but the players would get a richer experience without having to learn a zillion new commands for use during fast-paced combat.
Of course, the software becomes even more complex as soon as you realize that every one of these automatic actions really needs to be yet another mobprog trigger.
You know, ultimately one would want all these mobprogs running continuously, or at least in memory, within some mobprog codespace. And every object, mob or room that has mobprogs would have its own unique mobprog dataspace assigned to it. You don't, after all, want to read the things in only as needed, as that'll take forever (and with a hundred triggers, it's almost impossible to predict "as needed"). But when a trigger occurs, do you let a mobprog that acts upon said trigger run until it's done, or do you just "spawn a new thread" and let its activity do whatever while you go on?
Death is a case-in-point. Say you've got magical armor which, if you die, brings you back up to one HP (it'll do this ten times and then self-destruct). The character is at 5 HP, and takes a hit for 8 damage. Now, every single time someone or something takes any damage at all, the armor's mobprog trigger for damage get invoked. The trigger includes the data for the item getting damaged, how much damage, and the item doing the damage. The mobprog first checks to see if its wearer is the item taking damage (if not, exit). Then it checks to see if such damage would be fatal (if not, exit). Then it would simply add however many HP to its wearer would bring the wearer up to 1 HP after the damage is done (in this case, 4 HP).
In the case where we wait for the mobprog trigger to finish before the code for the attack moves on, that code will be subtracting the 8 HP from our character who would at that moment have 9 HP, and the software would never think that he'd died. But if the software only spawns the damage trigger, and then immediately does the substraction, the character will be at -3 HP long before the software actually gets around to running the mobprog. Which means that maybe we wouldn't put the armor's trigger on the taking of damage, but on player death.
Either way, the software has to be smart enough to wait for a while before actually telling the player that his character has died. Long enough for the mobprogs to finish, perhaps a second or two depending upon the popularity of the MUD. The game should obviously ignore player input during this time, and any mobs he's fighting shouldn't continue to beat on his (perhaps) corpse. But things can go back to normal as soon as the armor brings him back from the dead (which would cause another mobprog trigger).
(The big evil to beware with all these triggers is recursive activation.)
Actually, now that I think about it more, the triggers have to be able to complete processing before the software would take the next default step, because the mobprogs have to be able to indicate that the software should not do the next part.
For example, in moving from one room to another, a character (A) leaves the room he's in (going a certain direction), (B) travels from that room to a destination room (instantly), and then (C) enters the destination room (from a certain direction). Mobprogs should be able to shortcut this process at any of those three steps, so the software should trigger "LEAVING ROOM" prior to removing the character from the room, and if some mobprog indicates that it has handled that event, then the software doesn't need to finish step (A), and steps (B) and (C) don't need to execute at all. But what if more than one item would trigger on the same event, which would get priority?
In detail, if Graybeard is in room 123 (as the software knows it), and types "north" to move to room 137, the following steps occur:- Software sends "Graybeard LEAVING ROOM 123 N" to the room, any mobs in the room, any items in the room, all of Graybeard's items and then any items carried by mobs or other players in room 123, in that order. If any of them indicate that they "handled" the event, the software considers "north" to be completed.
- Software removes Graybeard from room 123, puts Graybeard into Limbo, sends a message to Graybeard's player, "You go north," and sends a message to all other players in room 123, "Graybeard went north."
- Software sends "Graybeard TRAVELS 123 N 137 S" to rooms 123 and 137, any mobs in both rooms, any items in both rooms, all of Graybeard's items and then any items carried by mobs or other players in rooms 123 and 137, in that order. If any of them indicate that they "handled" the event, the software considers "north" to be completed.
- Software sends "Graybeard ENTERS 137 S" to room 137, any mobs in that room, any item in that room, Graybeard's items and then any items carried by mobs or other players in room 137, in that order. If any of them indicate that they "handled" the event, the software considers "north" to be completed.
- Software takes Graybeard out of Limbo, puts Graybeard into room 137, executes a default "look" for Graybeard's player, and sends a message to all other players in room 137, "Graybeard enters from the south."
Now, mobprogs have the choice of doing something extra with these triggers, in which case they wouldn't indicate to the software that they'd "handled" the event (for example, for a magical door that heals characters as they pass through it, the mobprog would do nothing more than add HP to the character and send a message, "you feel tingly all over."). Those sorts of mobprogs would let the basic default "move" software handle the actual moving.
However, other mobprogs might actually want to move Graybeard somewhere other than room 137 ("Hey, we don't allow your kind in here!"), in which case such mobprogs have to actually do all the other crap that the default software would have done. No mobprog, however, can leave Graybeard in Limbo, since there's no way out for a player, nor is there any description (typically).
Dammit, the more I go on about this, the more I want to get back to actually writing my own MUD. I should be working on the SFN software, though... |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2008 : 05:22:26 [Permalink]
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| Denial of service: "...a Thief Guildmaster would spit in the face of a wizard before teaching him any thief skills." It's like a plumbing school denying service to an applicant for being an electrician. |
Actually Dave it's not like that at all, It's far more like a member of the National Science Foundation telling John Gotti that he would like training to become a Cosa Nostra member, foolish and unthinkable. (And bound for a knife in your back.)
Now I can understand getting skills from the Fighters Guild(National Guard) perhaps, but not Wizards or Thiefs. It's antithetical to my D&Dness. Now If you want to work your ass off and max out your positive faction with those groups, I suppose they might show you a few tricks.
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Anyway great stuff people, I only have 20,000 pages to write, so you may expect results within three lifetimes. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2008 : 05:51:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Anyway great stuff people, I only have 20,000 pages to write, so you may expect results within three lifetimes. |
20,000? Keeping it small, huh? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2008 : 06:44:30 [Permalink]
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| Well I was shooting for all new content but I may have to scrap that idea, my brain is already fried and I havnt finished the first two areas yet. Good news is the main city is the most complicated area(trainers/merchants/quests/etc.) and the rest should be easier. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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dglas
Skeptic Friend
Canada
397 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2008 : 17:09:55 [Permalink]
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I've worked quite a bit on a NWN PW (persistent world), Here's the approach we took.
Story-arc:
(1) Create your storyline, so that you can justify it being a work in progress. That way you can add new areas as you go.
(2) Build a base map and a very crude story, so that you can gain submissions by any others who are interested in doing work. This I call the LPMUD method.
(3) Have an opening story-arc sequence (perhaps series of small adventures), and then put the main story-arc on hold, except for small clues here and there, until the PCs reach a certain level. This will give you time and get things running more quickly than trying to get everything done at once.
Twinking/Economy
(4) Item level limits are a must to prevent twinking.
(5) Make the value of items be in their use. Crafting systems that allow for items worth more to sell than to make decimate economies outright. If you use crafting systems, introduce them slowly and in a very controlled manner.
(6) Set down very stringent rules on stocking "dungeons" in terms of money, magic, xp, etc. I always liked the idea of specialized dungeons that provide a good amount of one of these and little of the others. This will help space out the players between adventure areas.
(7) Provide isolated PVP locations for willing players, but make PVP in non-isolated areas impossible. Don't legislate against it; make it impossible.
(8) Always always, always think in terms of keeping the cat off the table by making it game structure impossible for it to get on the table. Never think you can just tell it to stay off and it will. These games encourage thinking outside the box. Don't think in terms of punishing that. Just very carefully define the environment to keep the boundaries you want.
More stuff, if you want it... ;)
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- dglas (In the hell of 1000 unresolved subplots...)
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The Presupposition of Intrinsic Evil
+ A Self-Justificatory Framework
= The "Heart of Darkness"
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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dglas
Skeptic Friend
Canada
397 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2008 : 02:56:46 [Permalink]
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Next installment...
Character Death and Respawn
You have a choice, as a game designer, to make character death frequent (and, by necessity, inconsequential), or infrequent (and with dire consequences).
(1) Character death should have differing degrees of consequences based on the method of respawn. Allow me to digress in order to explain. One thing that PWs are are always looking for is reasons for adventuring for the PCs. No matter how dedicated a game designer is, one cannot create enough story lines and adventures. One primary adventure type is the "Rescue the Fallen" and it has the benefit of bringing players together into adventuring parties. Therefore, character death should be optionally instantaneous. That meas that if a character is reduced to zero HP or less, they should be given the option of accepting a default respawn or requesting help from other PCs. You might be surprised how incredibly effective this is. So..
(2) Respawn methods:
(2a) Default. Maximum penalties. PCs respawn at nearest respawn point. You can justify it as a party of NPCs seeking out the fallen and bringing them back to a Ress altar (or the equivalent).
(2b) PC Retrieval. Lessened, but not completely mitigated respawn penalties. The Fallen PC requests a rescue by other PCs who must cart the body back to a respawn altar (or the equivalent). The result is an expenditure of time and effort and risk on the part of the rescuing PCs, plus some respawn costs for the rescued PC.
(2c) Await PC direct intervention. Lesser penalties. PCs are respawned at the point of death by rescuing PCs. In the case of AD&D, rescuing PCs may have spells of differing potency for which different penalties apply. I.E.: Raise Dead is not as good as Ressurect.
(3) Similarly, PCs should have some time between falling and dying, in order to give accompanying PCs an opportunity to bandage or heal them. This accentuates the function of the healer and gives the PCs an offset to otherwise nasty death penalties. Further, if the time is actually substantial, to gives the possibi8lity of rescuing PCs to get there before death actually occurs. Again, it's about creating adventures.
(4)Now. In the case of level-based character progression, levels are the benchmark. Under no circumstances aver take levels away from the PC. Mot only does it present unnecessary logistical problems, but it opens doors to unforseen griefing. Further, players despise nothing more than losing ground. Losing previously gained XP or gold is one thing - losing a level is quite another, since it represents a benchmark. Same thing if you use a purchase system for skills or abilities. Once spent, XP expenditures should be permanent.
Generally much of these boils down to: Allow the PCs to make allowances for possbile player death with functions in the settlement that can partially of completely offset death penalties - at a cost. if they choose ot to take advantage of these, then they have just helped mainatian tho economy's balance.
(5) On character death, all carried money should be lost. At the same time, the environment should providee opportunities for PCs to store or convert coin into a different form - at a cost. There are two reasons for this.
(5.1) PCs will understand perfectly well that any losses are their own fault, and;
(5.2) It provides a "money-sink." Banking functions or conversions (into gems, say) services allow for charges to reduce player wealth. it make sense from an economic POV and a play balance POV. Players may elect to ignore the functions and the costs associated with them, but they take a risk whe they do so, which feeds (5.1). |
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- dglas (In the hell of 1000 unresolved subplots...)
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The Presupposition of Intrinsic Evil
+ A Self-Justificatory Framework
= The "Heart of Darkness"
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2008 : 14:00:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by dglas
(3) Similarly, PCs should have some time between falling and dying... if the time is actually substantial... |
What would you think about PC ghosts? The body stays where it fell, and a new character, "Ghost of Graybeard" (or whatever) gets created near a nearby respawn point. The ghost is prevented from going anywhere that the character, while alive, hadn't visited, but it gives the PC some semblance of control. He can float around, try to find his buddies, and then... maybe YELL text at them, which they only get to partially hear. So maybe the player types:>yell Dudes, help me out! My body's over at the Fish Temple, in the northeast garden! |
and all his would-be rescuers see is:Ghost of Graybeard whispers, "Dud... me out! My bo... Fish Te... the north... den!" |
Yelling the same thing over again would result in a different, random, redaction.
Oh, and of course, as ghosts, PCs can't touch anything. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2008 : 14:03:07 [Permalink]
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If dying really presents an inconvenience like actually hurting level progression, or similar (I remember getting killed in NannyMUD being only a few XP from level-up, loosing practically an entire level) make sure than the description of an opponent gives a clue about its threat-level:
My NannyMUD character was swatted like a fly by a rather non-descript demon, simply because I couldn't make out from an examination how dangerous it was.
I would have appreciated a small comment based on some calculation of my capability vs opponent's.
A simple "The demon scares the bejesus out of me" would have sufficed to make me avoid that path.
A chicken presented as "Challenging" would give me a clue that I may have time enough to disengage from the battle and flee if things starts looking like it'll kick my ass. I'll at least have a semi-informed threat-assessment before diving in head first.
Edit spelling. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 07/08/2008 14:05:49 |
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dglas
Skeptic Friend
Canada
397 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2008 : 14:27:09 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by dglas
(3) Similarly, PCs should have some time between falling and dying... if the time is actually substantial... |
What would you think about PC ghosts? The body stays where it fell, and a new character, "Ghost of Graybeard" (or whatever) gets created near a nearby respawn point. The ghost is prevented from going anywhere that the character, while alive, hadn't visited, but it gives the PC some semblance of control. He can float around, try to find his buddies, and then... maybe YELL text at them, which they only get to partially hear. So maybe the player types:>yell Dudes, help me out! My body's over at the Fish Temple, in the northeast garden! |
and all his would-be rescuers see is:Ghost of Graybeard whispers, "Dud... me out! My bo... Fish Te... the north... den!" |
Yelling the same thing over again would result in a different, random, redaction.
Oh, and of course, as ghosts, PCs can't touch anything.
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That is almost precisely the method we used in EotS. The player is a ghost and a respawn avatar appears and gives the PC the option of respawning immediately or waiting. Including the corpse that can be picked up and moved around (and the base respawn altar) there are four objects included in EotS's death/respawn structure. WE didn't let the ghost move, but it could use the chat channels. Mind you the ghost was chained to the corpse, so if PCs poikced up the corpse, the ghost had to follow. We disn't do anything to the shout text, but I don't see why you couldn't. Seems to me it would seriously annoy people after a while, especially if they are new to the game and don't know the map well yet. |
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- dglas (In the hell of 1000 unresolved subplots...)
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The Presupposition of Intrinsic Evil
+ A Self-Justificatory Framework
= The "Heart of Darkness"
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2008 : 16:14:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by dglas
Mind you the ghost was chained to the corpse, so if PCs poikced up the corpse, the ghost had to follow. |
Seems to me that doing that would seriously limit the ability of the ghost to find someone to help, if the player was off on his own. But then again, since you allowed use of the chat channels, he wouldn't need to find anyone, he could just chat for help.
And in my idea, if someone happened across the corpse and cast ressurect while the ghost is off looking for someone, there'd be some sort of giant sucking sound and the player would find himself back in his newly re-animated, 1-HP body, regardless of how far away he'd travelled or what he was doing.| We disn't do anything to the shout text, but I don't see why you couldn't. Seems to me it would seriously annoy people after a while, especially if they are new to the game and don't know the map well yet. |
If a person is new to the game, they're not going to have friends willing to drop whatever they're doing to go off on a rescue mission, and thus nobody to shout at.
Back when I was playing often, death normally meant instant respawn, naked, with just enough XP to maintain your level. If you were low-level, running straight back to your corpse meant that you got all your belongings back pretty easily. High-level characters highly dependent on a large collection of armor, weapons, scrolls, potions and the like were pretty much dependent upon their still-alive companions fetching as much of the gear as they could carry and meeting the naked guy somewhere much, much safer than whatever dangerous spot got him killed. Default mob behavior tended to include picking up randomly found objects and vanishing them off to Limbo (destroying them), and there were always plenty of players who had no problems with stealing from the dead, so if nobody was around to help out, it often meant that one's corpse (and all belongings) would get trashed. All together, death was a rather massive penalty for someone who'd invested a lot in a game. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2008 : 17:36:35 [Permalink]
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Back when I was playing a RPG (City of Heroes), dying left you with what they called an 'experience debt'.
Basically, until you repaid your debt, half your experience points were going toward repaying this debt. In effect, halving your levelling speed, but not actually touching to the experience you had already acquired. Seemed pretty fair.
Also, upon death you could either use a consumable item (like a potion) to respawn on the spot or getting a buddy to either pass you such an item or use a power to res. you.
Other options included a teleport to either the nearest hospital or to your bases when you got automatically rezzed.
People disliked the debt and hated the few minutes it took to come back from the hospital though. So, be careful when implementing the penalties for dying. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2008 : 20:17:29 [Permalink]
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It occurs to me that death penalties should somehow be proportional to the amount of stupidity involved. In other words, if you're taking on the biggest, baddest monster in the whole MUD with a cohort of ten other super-high-level players and you get offed, while the battle was ultimately won, your penalty shouldn't be too harsh, since the overall team showed ability and good judgement. Gameplay itself shouldn't be penalized.
If, however, you've got a super-high-level character returning to town (alive) from such a battle, all out of health potions, with your armor in tatters, and with single-digit health, and you say, "maybe I'll go whack a kobold on my way" and it gets a lucky strike, you deserve to have all your great new treasures burned and your XP slashed. Cockiness and idiocy should be penalized greatly.
I'm thinking that one would want to take the level (or XP) equivalent of all teamed-up attackers, and compare it to the level (or XP) equivalent of all defenders. Take the absolute value of the result. If it's close to zero, the penalties should be minimal. The farther it is from zero (either the player attacked a mob way above or way below his level and died), the more severe the penalty.
On another, but similar, note: back in the day, because death always meant the same thing, instant deathtraps were always annoying, and maximally annoying when there was no warning. Especially the walk-into-a-room-and-die variety, because there was no way to retrieve a corpse from those. I'm thinking that if a deathtrap is really required (for story purposes, say), then the implementor should be able to set how bad the penalty is for dying in it, at least on a sliding scale of 0 to 100% "bad" (whatever that means for the particular game in question).
And I'm thinking that in the "training" area of a MUD, one should go ahead and put in a maximally-bad deathtrap, just to show the stupid that care is needed. A big red button somewhere with a sign that says, "don't push this button," that instantly kills them and imposes the harshest penalty. If a person waits until he's 25th level before pushing it, he gets what he deserves. A first-level character would lose pretty much nothing, and perhaps the next room offers them back the original knife and padded armor that they got as gifts in the previous room. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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New M.U.D. ideas
