Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?

From: barry@playfair.Stanford.EDU (Barrett P. Eynon)

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 20:33:42 +0000

In article <srt.740942744@aerospace.aero.org> srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner) writes:
>To get back to the original questiona about whether or not to give
>away the formulas, consider MUDs.  MUDs are interactive, complex games
>that give players a lot of room to develop strategies, etc.  In many
>ways MUDs are "very fast" versions of games like Olympia and
>Atlantis.
>
>In most MUDs, the details of combat, magic, etc. are not known.
>Generally players seem happy with this.  I don't play MUDs very often,
>but I've certainly never seen anyone quit a MUD because he didn't know
>the formula used to determine combat.
>
>					-- Scott T.
>
>

Bzzt! I've played enough combat MUDs to see what's really going on, perhaps
you have not: there are a few players who play all the time, get their
characters up to Immortal level, and then can take those characters all over
the game and peek at all the data. They also become the people who work on the
database and code, and many of them just for fun will make new characters and
use their knowledge to take their new characters up to Immortal while other
players are struggling to gain one level.

If you spend the time to get on these guys good side, they can easily recite
all the formulas for combat, the levels of any monster in question, and the
stats on all he good magic items and how to find them.

I think this makes exactly the point in question: there is no game with
"hidden formulas" after it has been played a little. There are games where
all players know the formulas, and those where only a few do. I prefer the
former, though it is sometimes fun to play the latter as long as I get in
early enough to be one of the people who gets the information first.

--
Barry Eynon
barry@playfair.stanford.edu

References

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Thu, 24 Jun 1993 17:25:44 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Thu, 24 Jun 1993 17:25:44 +0000