I already kinda dived into the idea on another board, but it got my mind buzzing...

How would you guys do it ya think? Here's my thoughts:

First off, I love OLC so I'd try to make this as OLCable as possible.

As we've all felt, the affects of weather on our bodies can change depending on many things. In the real life, what clothing we wear very much so changes the affect. Now apply this to a knight wearing cloth (very absorbant) armor in the rain, he'll weigh more and become tired more easily. Though some types of clolth become stronger when wet, thus a small boost to AC would be in order for those types. Other types, however, degrade faster when wet.

So with that said first - We'd have to implement some sort of material type for armor and clothing. I could also see benefits in this when considering other things, such as a more advanced elemental spell system. (metal armor + energy-based spell = Mage kicks ass )

Now secondly, we have numerous races. A sprite may find it very difficult to fly in windy weather, while a giant couldn't care much about the weather. A race with fur would find the cold a breeze, but a warmer climate would be hell. Thus we have a second variable that would need to be added. I'd call it a Racial climate RIS - What races resist certain climate types, are immune to them, or succeptable to them.

Then we can look at the benefits of spells and such. This means we should really calculate the Climate RIS of a character and store it on the pc_data It'd be hell to do it otherwise with these factors.

Now we have a way to tell what character will have what effect in what climate. Now we need a way to make the affects of a previous climate last if they need to. If you were just in a monsoon, you won't quite be dry by walking into a cloudy room. You would also dry faster if you walked into a desert. This is where something similar to the current affect system would be handy.

So far it seems simple, but how to make it all work?

The Climate RIS would be calculated when certain changes happen to a player. When armor is changed, spells are casted, or even when the 'race' of a character is changed (polymorph). An engine would have to take the current climate, and then the character's Climate RIS, and place a 'weather affect' on the player which will also affect the character's climate RIS. If you're soaked from the rain, and then it gets REAL cold and starts snowing... you're not going to feel too well.

So now we somewhat have a system in mind. But what will this do to players? That's an even trickier part I think. It can't be as simple as taking HP or movement, but that's a place to start. Perhaps weather affects could apply other affects, such as 'common cold' or the like.

Now with all this said... we have a working psuedo weather affect system. But is it all worth it? We just made playing the MUD 10 times harder and more hell for players. Sure it seems 'cool', but so did getting thirsty and tired at first. Then it was a royal pain in the arse. On the flip side, there could be bonuses for certain weather conditions. Mages already have to wait for bad weather to use things like 'call lightning'. So further we could think about what benefits would certain classes get for certain weather conditions, and what penalties would they get? *boggle*

Well there it is, in gray and .. well gray, or whatever your colors look like!

-- X

I know it's a late reply, but that's the only kind I'm really good at. Ask anyone that emails me how long it takes. I "forget" conveniently for weeks sometimes But anyway, just bored, sitting here at work in the short time I have after work before I have to go pick my baby up from work and was reading through old posts.

Here's what I think of weather affecting players *thumbs down* The point you made of the escaping reality factor is a very, very, very (have I said very?) good one. It's why a lot of "advanced" games fail. There is a point where a game is too far advanced to be fun anymore, and in the world of text-based games, it's easy to cross that line unless you are with extreme RP'ers.

Now, I'm definitely not saying to cater to the annoying little ####s that log in and complain that you didn't advance them to avatar and load them up the best eq in the game because that's what they feel they deserve. (I'm not bitter, some people just annoy me more than others ) But I do think that getting into detailed weather effects should only be considered if it's going to be a strict RP-enforced game. Otherwise you're looking at a far-too-bothersome system that will drive more people crazy than me threatening to take all my clothes off.

I think that if it was used in extreme moderation, it might be worth pursuing. But if it was going to affect gameplay greatly, then no.

Some things I would consider "reasonable" uses:


certain high level spells (any class) - for example; perhaps a set of high level spells for whatever class that can only be used in certain weather conditions, but making sure that no 2 of those set of spells can be used at any given time OR maybe a single spell that has different effects depending on the weather, but the player must not be "inside" a building or otherwise seperated from the outside world

depending on the travel system, slowing down traveling (or maybe just using more mv) if the weather is really bad. I mean, seriously, even in a fantasy world, you don't go prancing through a blizzard or an earthquake ;P

if the above was implemented, possibly making the opposite true in extremely good weather (defined sunny with butterflies). People get further because they don't notice the tiredness, etc, etc. But again, if the current travel system is a bitch to get anywhere on, I wouldn't mess with either of these.

I'm sure I have some more, but it's time for me to leave, so NYAH! I might post something else later.

Oh yes, there are some benefits for a more advanced weather system... I just saw it mentioned once to have weather affect players.

One of those good-ideas-that-turn-out-bad. Kinda like zMUD

Actually, I've been trying to think of a decent way to allow players to experience different difficulty, and this might be one of those ways. Rather than high level spells, perhaps a known 'difficult' class that must focus around the changes in weather and other natural variables to do much of anything.

But then you'd have those few players who some how make it into a text-based game with the inability to read a single word. They'd end up choosing this advanced class, despite all the warnings placed in the information and even the confirmation they were forced to answer YES to. Then they'd find out that this 'cool' class was indeed difficult and obviously the game now SUCKS because of their own error.

I think I need to take a break from MUDs

-- X

Actually, getting hungry and tired IS cool, provided you have carrots to go with the sticks. The Power Mudders ™ will disagree, of course, but the only problem with having downtime from running-around bashing-things-on-the-head is that there aren't enough OTHER things to do.

Example: In most muds, when you run out of movement points, you can't move. No running, no walking, no flee'ing (yeah, it should be flight), in some cases, no more swinging the sword. In the mud I last worked on, running out of movement meant you could no longer fight, run, or cast spells (or anything else that was considered complex). You could still walk, chat, read. You could buy and sell things in the market (although you wouln't get good prices!).

The key there is, the game needs to provide for non-combat activities that are both fun and essential to your character's development. I always liked the idea of a crafting system, where players could collect things from the wilderness or dead mobs and try crafting them into other things... instead of making it just a "poof, it's done", why not make it interactive?

As for food/water... it IS tedious to have to eat all the time... but I liked the way EverQuest did it. You had to have them in your inventory, and your character would be assumed to snack as they travelled. If you run out of either, you stop healing. Ignore it for longer, your stats go down a little. Ignore it for longer still, and you end up with no movement points (see above).

What it did do in a positive sense was teach the players about upkeep costs, and make them actually plan out long journeys a little bit (can we buy food between here and there, or do we need a ranger who can hunt, or a druid who can forage? or a pack-mule to carry more supplies?)

Likewise, weather can both make things harder and easier. Don't make the "sunny day" your 0 point, make an overcast day be normal... then sunny days give you bonuses, and rain gives you penalties (or the reverse if you're a vampire I guess).

I have played on several muds that had weather effects on the players. Some of them worked nicely and added to the gaming experience by not taking away any of the fun and bogging the game down in details while others were way over the top and players dreaded the next weather change.
I like the idea of weather affecting things like overland movement and casting certain spells (or skills) that could be affected by weather such as building/creating a fire in a rainstorm.
As long as the implementor doesn't take things too far looking for ultra-realism then having some weather effects can add a little challenge and uncertainty to a game.
I also like Quixadhal's suggestion of crafting. This probably should be taken to a new thread but I do have a thought... could the rune system be adapted to a system allowing the creation of items from piece-parts? I figure that this would be a good starting place. Since adding runes to weapons and armor can create a "new" item with unique properties why can't it be done with objects in the game being placed together to create special objects with their own properties? This sounds like a good skill for gnomes or just a general game concept for anyone able to figure it out.

So many thoughts and ideas for such a tiny brain!

Okay, I know this thread is old, but I also know that the people posting here (still) have opinions about this sort of thing.

quixadhal said:

The key there is, the game needs to provide for non-combat activities that are both fun and essential to your character's development. I always liked the idea of a crafting system, where players could collect things from the wilderness or dead mobs and try crafting them into other things... instead of making it just a "poof, it's done", why not make it interactive?

In general, with crafting, how much complexity have you found to be too much complexity? Is there a certain number of steps in creating something that players just don't want to go beyond or where it's too confusing for the average (albeit average roleplayer) to hold in her mind?

Is ore->metal->mold->part->object too much? Is ore->metal->object better?

Does it depend more on the kinds of players or on the power of the final object? Any feedback in this area would be appreciated. (Also note that I'm not talking about "those" kinds of players: the ones who want to be powerful and accomplished on day one, without spending any time in the game or reading the helps or thinking about their character at all.)

quixadhal said:

As for food/water... it IS tedious to have to eat all the time... but I liked the way EverQuest did it. You had to have them in your inventory, and your character would be assumed to snack as they travelled. If you run out of either, you stop healing. Ignore it for longer, your stats go down a little. Ignore it for longer still, and you end up with no movement points.

I've found it quite annoying to have to drink/eat in MUDs, because the MUD time has never been near real time, so if you're involved in a long RP session, you're going to get inappropriate thirst/hunger messages, because it takes more time to type things that it would to say them and the MUD day goes by pretty fast. Okay, pet peeve aired.

Now, do any of you have experience with a MUD which has implemeted an EverQuest-type system? Where you only need to get food/drink every once in a while, say when you're in town, provided you make semi-regular trips back, and the game mechanics take care of it when you're out in the field, actively RPing? Has this type of system worked?

Other than one with no possibility of dying from hunger/thirst, have you encountered a system which is semi-realistic and also has a low rate of complaint by the players? I've found that the players tend not to complain too much about it to the imms, since there are always things they want/don't want much more, but they'll definitely complain about it to eachother and apologize when they have to eat/drink in the middle of RP.

If that's the case (in an RP MUD), is it better to 1) have no thirst/hunger messages and trust players to have their characters eat/drink when appropriate or to 2) have cosmetic messages, which will spam the player, but with no risk to their character, or 3) have real starvation/dehydration in sync with RL days instead of MUD days (which makes less RP sense, but is easier for the player), to cut back on interferences to scenes, or 4) go all the way and have thirst/hunger synced to MUD days (assuming they're not too short), even if the days are short enough that in an evening of play, a character will have to eat and drink once or more.

Again, thanks for your comments.