Recently, I was trying the game projectbob, sinse someone on audiogames.net recommended it as needing a db entry.
it has lots of great systems or mechanics, but I realized i was having distinct and real trouble getting into the game. I found myself asking why, why I'd not really taken the opportunity sinse vipmud was released to go and play many muds, when there are so many good games available, why indeed I've put down alteraeon slightly recently and don't find myself picking it up, even though I'm such a huge fan of textual rpgs, avidly wait for new updates of eamon deluxe, love games like kerkerkruip and treasure of a slavers kingdom, not to mention gamebooks and other brouser games, and get extremely excited and involved with the descriptions, the writing and the atmosphere of where I'm exploring. ? Then it hit me. the problem is time! ? in a turn based game there is plenty of time to read each description. This doesn't just go for rooms and areas, but for monsters and attacks as well. In every mud I've played however, you just don't get time! to fully ead and appreciate text, and in fact usually have to skip past descriptions of enemies or their lairs. ? to explain, where as in a text game, if I fought my way to the top of the tower of some evil wizard, opened the final door, I'd slowly read the description of the evil wizard and his room to myself, and be thinking "oh hell! what's he going to do now" ? In a mud however, once I open the door, I don't get time! to read the description, sinse I'll quickly be typing attack, despell magic, and needing to skip most of the text at super speed. ? If on the wizard's turn I read "the wizard raises one hand towards you, and a bolt of absolutely black lightning streams out, filling the room with a cent of burning, wrotten flehsh" ? whatever it is going to do to my character, even if in fact my character is amazingly hard and it does little, i'll still think "oh no, what's this going to do, this is bad!" be invested in the story. ? In a mud however, I need sapi set really fast, and usually the most I can read is "the wizard casts lightning" before I'm having to start typing like a demon to counter, dodge, bash or whatever. ? It rather reminds me of a wonderful moment in my weekly mutants and masterminds game that we had recently, when we were fighting an evil sorceress under the waters of a lake. our gm took great pleasure in saying "you see her raising her hands, and see her lips moving as though she's casting a spell. For some time, nothing seems to happen, then suddenly you hear thunder above you and a bolt of lightning strikes the lake!" ? there was this lovely chorus of "oh hell!" which our gm very much seemed to enjoy, as we all put two and two, or in this case water and lightning, together, and our gm left us contemplating for a couple of seconds before asking us to roll our toughness against the damage of the attack. ? Of course, this isn't to say the real time fights in mud games aren't good fun. it is rather satisfying sometimes to think on my feet, to realize my targit has a weapon and I can use disarm, or cast feeble mind at a targit who's using magic. ? The lack of ability to quickly read atmospheric text however in muds does seem at least for me a rather major drawback, especially when it comes to really huge encounters with bosses, or with unusual types of monsters. ? I know with Dentin we've discussed a preview corpse command, so that you can get the living description of an enemy from their dead corpse after you have slane them, which would partly at least compensate for the problem, but I am now wondering if a more general solution could be planned. ? Is there a way to pause the output from a mud? ie, stop all timers so that you just have time to read the dam text and can have a couple of seconds contemplation before a hectic fight? if so, this would be a great thing to have in vipmud. ? Am I perhaps missing something here that everyone else does to read atmospheric text in games? ? Any thoughts? ? I'd especially appreciate input from Dentin, and anyone else who has written a mud on this issue, as well as experienced mud players, sinse I do realize this is what is slightly spoiling muds for me, despite how much i really enjoy textual rpg games. ? All the best, ? Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
