Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Starver]

Anyone know a MUD/MOO/Mwhatever with a health system that, much like Dwarf Fortress and Unreal World, does not rely on simple HPs? Somehow, being text-based and all, I'd expect them to be more complex than their graphical counterparts, but I actually haven't seen a single one that'd be more complex than Wurm Online. :S

From the opposite POV Discworld (and other MUDs) lets you set your combat options to target specific body areas (or back to general), while the various types of armour/protective attire that you can use covers one or more of those locations, but not the entirity of the body.  (Magic/Faith shields, etc, excepted.)

And while the attacks themselves don't generally cause per-location damage (there is of course a warrior 'beheading' special, witches can cause people to lose their noses, and there's non-combat incidents that can break ones legs), the location and the wearing of relevent armour will effect the resulting HP loss, and various other details.


So if you want to initiate an attack by 'backstabbing' a troll's neck with your bare hands, feel free.  It may (or may not) be more effective than your other possible attacks, depends on how you've weighted your skill tree!

[Muz]

My favorite is Armageddon MUD and HellMOO. So many interesting bits :>

That said, 99% of MUDs fall short of my expectations. Most are like text-based versions of MMOs, just more boring. I expect something that doesn't have the limitations of using nice graphics on everything to have a lot more depth to them.

[Starver]

Most are like text-based versions of MMOs, just more boring.

To exagerate for effect, that's perhaps like saying Pong is like Wii Tennis.  It's a different vintage, and of course there are differences in presentation.

As for the "more boring", I wouldn't want to argue.  Otherwise it'd probably turn into a "Youth of today with ADD, etc, without the patience to learn things, blah blah blah..." thing.  Or (certainly very possible, given you're obviously capable of dealing witht he DF interface, so can't be totally slave to 3D rendering) you just wwere unlucky enough to find the less interesting (or currently less player-populated) MUDs, rather than just not understanding the difference emphasis in pace (catching or missing something in a text-only room description is different to catching or missing a 'glowing spark' indicator on an isometric worldview).

[ductape]

HellMOO uses locational hits when looking for armor cover, and you can get broken limbs etc. There is a single HP system though for the death part of things, but a broken leg wont make it easy to get away from an enemy.

[Rhodan]

DF's combat system is great, though a lot of it would have to be automated to fit into a MUD.  MUDs are realtime, so grabbing your opponents right foot and wrapping it around his head could be a bit troublesome.
I'd also make critical hits less lethal, only happen when your HP is already low.

I remember reading somewhere that DF critters have a main HP bar, represented as blood.  I think this is a great system, you get your locational damage with has effects like crippling you, but you won't die by being stabbed in the toe 17 times unless you bleed to death.
Blunt damage causes internal bleeding so that counts as well.  What makes someone die, anyways?  I'd say either blood loss or suffocation, so in a way, real humans also have a semi-measurable HP bar.

Discworld has a lot of depth modern MMO's can't have.  When you attack an NPC in Djelibeybi and some soldier NPCs walk in, they might place a bet on you.  If you or the NPC begins to lose, they might even help out to protect their bet.
Stealing a soldier's money during the betting might make his companions angry when he can't pay his debt.  I don't see NPCs in WoW doing this.
You can also do silly things like cutting food into pieces, or mixing fluids together just for fun.
I once cast a spell on a roast pig that made it say 'Oink!' every once in a while, and discovered that after cutting up said pig, every separate piece still said 'Oink!'.
Needless to say, I soon reinvented spam.
Ooh, and Discworld dwarfs are great.  They all have beards, sing about gold and love to mine.  Players are always human, but if you act like a dwarf and look like a dwarf, you're a dwarf.

[Virtz]

DF's combat system is great, though a lot of it would have to be automated to fit into a MUD.  MUDs are realtime, so grabbing your opponents right foot and wrapping it around his head could be a bit troublesome.
I'd also make critical hits less lethal, only happen when your HP is already low.

I really just mean the health system. I find HPs too abstract and insubstantial. Unless the HP levels are low and damage levels high (say, like in Fallout 1,2), the combat inevitably comes down to dull HP-drainage.

Blunt damage causes internal bleeding so that counts as well.  What makes someone die, anyways?  I'd say either blood loss or suffocation, so in a way, real humans also have a semi-measurable HP bar.

Doesn't it essentially all come down to brain damage? You're losing blood, oxygenated blood cannot reach the brain, no oxygen to the brain - your brain dies. You're suffocating, your blood doesn't get oxygenated, no oxygen to the brain - your brain dies. The only way other way you can die is of direct brain damage. Or at least I think so.

I also hate how most games (or games with HPs) treat life and death as binary values. You can be alive and well, perfectly fit to fight, and dead the next moment because you lost one too many health points. There's nothing in between like being too weak to fight or unconscious, just alive and able or dead and still.

Speaking in more general (RPG) terms, I think a complex health system could lead to more probable roleplaying scenarios rather than to scenarios where parties or even lone characters single-handedly wipe out whole civilizations Yor-style, murdering everyone along the way.

[userpay]

Hmm tried out discworld and to be honest I'm not to impressed. The commands are even more anal than hellmoo (like in discworld you can't just abreviate the item you have to pretty much type it out). I'll probably try to play it a bit more later but as of right now not to impressed.

[Devin]

Cybersphere (http://cs.vv.com/) is a MOO with some interesting attributes;

-Cyberpunk setting (Ala' Gibson)
-Skill-based, with new skills acquired over time on a diminishing-returns basis, so extremely long-lived characters don't totally dwarf newer characters.
-Interesting cyberspace world in addition to meatspace, for those interested in hacking.  It's possible to monitor people's locations through their communications implants, listen in to conversations, hijack someone's implant to make them appear to send messages in order to start feuds, etc.  It's even possible (although extremely difficult and at extreme risk) to hack and subsequently fire an orbital mining laser at someone you don't like who's walking down the street.  Hilarity and massive overkill typically ensues.
-Realistic wounds and medicine, including fairly intricate interactive surgery.
-Advanced vehicle handling, including flight handling and aerial combat.  I recommend acquiring an armored hovercraft, mounting a .50 cal machine gun on it, and chase your least favorite mugger through the streets with gun blazing.  It's very therapeutic.

Downsides:
-Abusive players (ala' HellMoo; it's simply not safe to casually walk down the street, as you will be mugged and/or killed for sport)
-Some of the abusive players are GMs (Or were when I was playing.  GMs could and would do horrible things to you with GM powers for antagonizing their characters)
-Paying relatively high prices for apartments, gear, etc is a bit annoying in terms of the busywork necessary to keep up the needed income.  There are also limited populations of high-end items, and players tend to horde those, meaning that many items are simply unavailable at virtually any price.

[Bogre]

www.armageddon.org

Very high roleplaying level, perm-death, no pay-for-benefit anythings like Iron Realms. Any character can have an impact on other characters and the world.

[Sappho]

I've got a question about Discworld.  It's driving me completely nuts and I feel like an idiot for not being able to figure it out.  I want to join the witches' guild and I'm at Granny Weatherwax's cottage.  I know that the key to the cottage is in the privy, but every time I go in there, there's a giant evil badger of death guarding the thing so I can't take it.  How on earth do I get this key?  Does anyone know?

[userpay]

Cybersphere (http://cs.vv.com/) is a MOO with some interesting attributes;

-Cyberpunk setting (Ala' Gibson)
-Skill-based, with new skills acquired over time on a diminishing-returns basis, so extremely long-lived characters don't totally dwarf newer characters.
-Interesting cyberspace world in addition to meatspace, for those interested in hacking.  It's possible to monitor people's locations through their communications implants, listen in to conversations, hijack someone's implant to make them appear to send messages in order to start feuds, etc.  It's even possible (although extremely difficult and at extreme risk) to hack and subsequently fire an orbital mining laser at someone you don't like who's walking down the street.  Hilarity and massive overkill typically ensues.
-Realistic wounds and medicine, including fairly intricate interactive surgery.
-Advanced vehicle handling, including flight handling and aerial combat.  I recommend acquiring an armored hovercraft, mounting a .50 cal machine gun on it, and chase your least favorite mugger through the streets with gun blazing.  It's very therapeutic.

Downsides:
-Abusive players (ala' HellMoo; it's simply not safe to casually walk down the street, as you will be mugged and/or killed for sport)
-Some of the abusive players are GMs (Or were when I was playing.  GMs could and would do horrible things to you with GM powers for antagonizing their characters)
-Paying relatively high prices for apartments, gear, etc is a bit annoying in terms of the busywork necessary to keep up the needed income.  There are also limited populations of high-end items, and players tend to horde those, meaning that many items are simply unavailable at virtually any price.

Hmm I may have to try this.

[Grendus]

DF's combat system is great, though a lot of it would have to be automated to fit into a MUD.  MUDs are realtime, so grabbing your opponents right foot and wrapping it around his head could be a bit troublesome.
I'd also make critical hits less lethal, only happen when your HP is already low.

Most heavy mudders can break 40 wpm with ease. In Hellmoo, for example, between enemy swings I can manually enter six drink commands (my character gets healed from being drunk). Typing "grab leg -enter- lock leg -enter- break leg -enter-" would take me about 4 seconds. If each grab/lock/break was done based on your swing timer (which is usually several seconds long), anyone who can touch type could play a mud with the df combat system with no problem, and those who had trouble with it could set up macros to handle all the hefty typing issues. The only excuse a mud has for having a poor combat system is that either the creator couldn't think of a better one or the creator was unable to implement a better one.

I remember reading somewhere that DF critters have a main HP bar, represented as blood.  I think this is a great system, you get your locational damage with has effects like crippling you, but you won't die by being stabbed in the toe 17 times unless you bleed to death.
Blunt damage causes internal bleeding so that counts as well.  What makes someone die, anyways?  I'd say either blood loss or suffocation, so in a way, real humans also have a semi-measurable HP bar.

Fairly accurate. You die when the flow of oxygen to your brain stops for a sufficient time. This can be caused by a number of things: not enough blood to pump (bled to death), no oxygen in the blood (suffocation), heart no longer received instructions to pump (spinal or brain damage), heart stopped working (heart attack or severe chest wound), or blood cannot reach the brain (usually a stroke, though if you put enough pressure on the jugular vein you can cut it off. There are easier ways to kill someone though).

It would be fairly simple to model these things on a computer, though it would turn out to just be two health bars with a few instant-death scenarios.

Discworld has a lot of depth modern MMO's can't have.  When you attack an NPC in Djelibeybi and some soldier NPCs walk in, they might place a bet on you.  If you or the NPC begins to lose, they might even help out to protect their bet.
Stealing a soldier's money during the betting might make his companions angry when he can't pay his debt.  I don't see NPCs in WoW doing this.
You can also do silly things like cutting food into pieces, or mixing fluids together just for fun.
I once cast a spell on a roast pig that made it say 'Oink!' every once in a while, and discovered that after cutting up said pig, every separate piece still said 'Oink!'.
Needless to say, I soon reinvented spam.
Ooh, and Discworld dwarfs are great.  They all have beards, sing about gold and love to mine.  Players are always human, but if you act like a dwarf and look like a dwarf, you're a dwarf.

Sounds interesting. I've heard of discworld but never seen it (I know, I know, you can shoot me later just answer my question now). What exactly is it?

[Trorbes]

Sounds interesting. I've heard of discworld but never seen it (I know, I know, you can shoot me later just answer my question now). What exactly is it?

It's a collection of humorous fantasy books by the British author Terry Pratchett set on the Discworld, a disc world on the backs of four giant elephants, themselves situated on the back of the giant turtle The Great A'tuin.  They're all very good and I would highly recommend them.

[Rhodan]

Hmm tried out discworld and to be honest I'm not to impressed. The commands are even more anal than hellmoo (like in discworld you can't just abreviate the item you have to pretty much type it out). I'll probably try to play it a bit more later but as of right now not to impressed.

Well, any item can be nicknamed in-game, and most mud clients support and autocomplete-feature. I'm curious about what other commands are anal, though.  The basics are similar to HellMOO, although Discworld seems to have more flexibility.
For example, I can write "get the bottles except the red bottle from my pack". Simple english, Discworld understands it.
A basic player would write "get bottles except red bottle from pack" which is less specific because it could confuse your pack with a pack on the floor. (It won't, but it could happen in other cases)
A seasoned player would just have aliased it to "gfp bottles except red bottle"
Things like "my item", "last item", "item here", "fresh item", "held weapon" and probably a lot I haven't learned yet all make it very easy to manipulate large amounts of different objects, and Discworld has a lot of different objects.  You'll find few people wearing the same pants, eveyone has them custom-made.

For those who don't know about Discworld:
Discworld is a flat world carried on the back of four elephants standing on a giant turtle swimming through space.  The world itself is a parody of a typical fantasy world, though it does this without getting too cheesy.  (In the novels, at least.  The MUD has taken a few liberties, but nothing too bad)

There's a few main areas on the Disc:
Ankh-Morpork, the largest city with a river so foul you can walk on it.  It's everything from all major cities rolled into one.  The ethnic minorities range from trolls to dwarves to goblins to vampires, all seeking their place in society.  Female dwarves recently began emancipating, wearing make-up and braiding their beards, tired of fighting and drinking like the males do.  There's an assassin's guild where you can go take out contracts on other (PK) players, lots of fun.
It also has an official Thieves Guild.  Thieves are allowed to steal only so much each quota period, to keep crime at an acceptable level.  Freelancing thieves soon meet their demise.

The Ramtops, an mountainous area riddled with small kingdoms and even smaller villages.  Most of the area is vertical.  Witches are commonplace and well-respected here.  Further down is Uberwald which has vampires, werewolves and tribes of Igors who seek out a master to serve.

Klatch, a desert region.  Main city is Djelibeybi, "Child of the river Djel".  Egyptian/Arabian parody, don't kill the cats.

Agatea, an asian-themed area.  Gold is as valuable as iron here, though exporting it won't work.  Only city you can visit so far is Bes Pelargic, very large.  Has a few Great Houses you can join, which is kinda like an extra guild.  People here are "auriental", because of all the gold, see.

Genua, a city that's a mix of New Orleans, europe and fairytales.  Home to the Musketeer guild, named after some kind of grape.
There's voodoo and alligators and stuff here.  Also a lot of nice shops for nice clothes.

Most PK players improve their fighting skills so they can fight other players.  There's no level cap, but you can still get ahead if you play your cards right.  Most NPK players enjoy killing the NPCs and getting money to buy expensive stuff like houses, furniture, their own shop, hire a Seamstress,... There are also a lot of non-combat skills like pottery, embroidery, engraving, playing music, painting, building sandcastles, casting various spells and so on.  You can write for the newspapers, write a play, publish books, all sorts of stuff.
Magic is a bit unbalanced when fighting against other players, but it's great for killing NPCs and even greater to make money or just have fun.
There's also very few assholes around.  Admins abusing their power is virtually unheard of, and killing other players unprovoked is frowned upon or even punishable by player-run court if you loot their corpse in city limits.  Licensed stealing is ok though, and most thieves will sell their stuff back to you fo a fair price.

[umiman]

That sounds entertaining. I might get in on that!