Saturday, 1 December 2007

Hello,

It's me again, my coder and I were just discussing, about mobs, and objects in the mud. I am of the opinion that someone who is blind, may not want a description of a mob, or object when you type look mob, or look object, because it bogs down the reader. By that I mean you will still see something like. A giant troll is standing here. you just wouldn't get a description like A giant troll with green skin, and red eyes, wearing a loin cloth and carrying a tree for a club, etc.

My coder thinks the description will be wanted to help explain the mob or object.

What works best?

Vladaar
http://6dragons.org
telnet://6dragons.org:4000/

Speaking for myself, I love descriptions, the more detailed and deeper the better. I approach muds from an RPG standpoint rather than a gaming standpoint, so I find descriptions give me good clues about the world and how to rp it. I find muds that, for example, have a room description like "the walls are covered with beautiful carvings" and then when you type "examine carvings" you get something to the effect of "you don't see that object" or "Some beautiful carvings" really frustrating. I start to feel like not only am I blind, but my in-game character is pretty short-sighted, too! However, this isn't really an access issue; it's more a matter of play style. A player can always press a hotkey to stop the reading for a minute when he gets too much information. If you're worried about too much text printing, one thing you could do is make "look at <object>" and "examine <object>" too different commands, one printing a detailed description and one just printing the basics. Many mushes already do this, with hell (http://hell.game-host.org) being a good example. Hell is also a really good example of accessible navigation: the blocks are numbered, and the streets have lots of intersections. It makes giving directions to a location in hell really easy ("zombie contracts are in the shop a little south of fourth and norton, on the west side. You know, near the hospital.").