Re: Movement schemes and user expectation

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:22:14 -0800, Donald Charles Guthrie wrote:

> I had an idea a while ago for a movement scheme in a MUD. The basic idea
> is to eliminate the normal mechanism of moving by typing "n", "s", etc.
> and instead have a system based on moving forward and turning.

I have a strange feeling that this has been thought of before..

> First, it helps to confound players who depend excessively on highly
> sophisticated mud-clients with auto-mapping features - it puts them on a
> more level playing field with newbies who haven't figured out
> auto-mappers yet.

Until someone writes an auto-mapper that supports this style of movement.

> Secondly, it makes the process of learning your way around more
> true-to-life. In real life you don't think "I must turn north-east off
> the road at this point", you think "I must turn RIGHT at this point".

Not really. You think "I must turn left when I see that red building on my
right side". The problem is, you'd need to read all the descriptions, and
those would have to be relative to you direction too.

This is similar to the problem with early games with "3D" graphics; if
there's no enough information about surroundings (different descriptions,
textures, room shapes, objects around) that you can identify places you've
already seen, it's awfully hard to figure out a route to some place.

If the system works with numeric information, it's even harder, as you
constantly have to calculate directions.

> Thirdly, it provides a very satisfactory model for getting lost. :-)

I doubt that it's going to be more like "frustrating" model of getting
lost..

It could work, if good, unique descriptions are written for each room, or
if the map is populated with richly described objects and the descriptions
for each position is calculated on the fly..

> The problem, of course, is that nearly every player would log on to the
> MUD expecting to be able to use commands like "n", "s", "e", etc. to
> move around. Would most players simply abandon the MUD in disgust
> because it's too unlike what they are used to? There may well be
> compromises - for example the command "n" could still work, but be
> interpreted as "move in the direction that, to the best of my
> character's knowledge, is north" rather than simply "move north". But I
> think it raises more general questions: to what extent is potentially
> innovative MUD design stifled by player conservatism, or to what extent
> is it necessary to cater for player-expectation in MUD design?

I think that what you call "player conservatism" is about players wanting
to enjoy the game. Many "innovative" ideas require much more dedication
and concentration from players towards the game mechanisms.

I'm not really trying to say that the idea is actually bad. I'm just
saying that it'll slow the gameplay a lot, and requires much more work
from world-builders, if people are supposed to be able to learn areas. For
dungeons this could work quite well, but I wouldn't hold my breath for the
outdoor areas..

-- 
 - Teemu Voipio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>