CLOK BBS

I thought it would be neat if when we quit, it would kick out how much of what skills we gained on the session we were connected. I figured this wouldn't be a huge problem since it seems like all of that is tracked anyhow.

It would really help some of us know and understand if what we do is working for us or perhaps some things gave gains we didn't know about! Anyhow, just a suggestion!

Just for clarification's sake, would it just be a list of only the skills we got gains in? If so, I'm all over this idea. :) :)

Personally, I feel that's taking things a bit too far in a direction against an RP MUD. While I understand we have a very gamey skill system, I really don't feel it should be presented as the focus of CLOK. Doing this would be a step towards that.

In fact, counter-suggesiton: I think it'd be pretty cool if we didn't show people what their exact skill ranks were at all, but instead just generalized it with a phrase. "Unskilled", "Novice", and so on. They could be working on a skill for days/weeks without seeing their rank change. They'd still be gaining skill exactly the same way they do now, the only difference is they wouldn't know exactly how many skill ranks they have.

I think i would like that. taking the numbers out of the skill display. though i will add that if we do it that way, we might need some indicator that what we are doing is actually making us better at a thing.

Sorry Critmeister, but I really like Jirato's counter-suggestion.

That's completely fine, just a suggestion ;)!

Jirato wrote:In fact, counter-suggesiton: I think it'd be pretty cool if we didn't show people what their exact skill ranks were at all, but instead just generalized it with a phrase. "Unskilled", "Novice", and so on. They could be working on a skill for days/weeks without seeing their rank change. They'd still be gaining skill exactly the same way they do now, the only difference is they wouldn't know exactly how many skill ranks they have.

The problem I see with this is those times when you aren't learning anything at all and you wouldn't realize it.

You could easily do this with a mudlet script. I've written a few in Lich (Ruby) for Gemstone that did the same thing for XP.

I actually don't like Jirato's counter-suggestion.

I like to see numbers for my own peace of mind. Not only for the reason Elystole stated, but because it's nice to see progress and how my skillgains are working overall.

I like the no numbers thing. It will make IC talking about how good we are at something less...weird. If i think I'm a novice with 300 skill and someone thinks that is more ...journiman or compitant then we kind of blunder around it. I do also agree we need to know if what we're doing is working.

Well then, it could be optional? Option(whatever number) on=text based, off=number based.

i like the numbers. I however find it very cumbersome to talk about how skilled you are in a certain thing IC so here's my two cents.

Change the skill levels to text, maybe ten levels
absolute beginner,
still learning,
clumsy, yet practical,
graduated apprentice,
journeyman,
hasn't broken anything in a while,
Working on that masterpiece,
master level work,
If it's there, I can do it,
and finally
Grandmaster poobah

These of course would coorespond to 0-100, 101-200 etc up to 1000 and infinity. You could simply add an extra flavor message for when the skill actually increases and if you see something like
Hmm, you think you'll do that better next time.
Wow, what an improvement.
Getting better, getting better.

or any other suitably better message you know you've gotten better at it. These messages however I would like to suggest be an option to toggle on and off like combatrolls or something. You have all made combat much easier to deal with, especially with many people involved and having this message pop up after each skill gain would kind of detract from that.
options SkillBetters on You'll get messages whenever your skill increases.
options SkillBetters off You won't get told if you get better at something.

Now you have an option to turn it off or on depending on need, amusing ways of discussing your skill level, and the ability to determine if what you are doing is actually improving your char. Did I miss anything?

Because of the minefield of bugs we wade through as players, not having the skill numbers visible would be a disaster under the current situation.

Think of the bug where if you were fighting on horseback, and if your warhorse decided to kick that round; you got zero riding gain that round and no way to be aware of it. Or if for some reason your firearms skillgains were only half or less than half half as gainful as the same practice on the longbow...how long would it take the clok community to notice that coding error?

The moral of the story is, some good ideas are only good on a bug-free mud.

I agreed with you up until the end, Kent (and I wouldn't call it a disaster). There is no such thing as a bug free mud. :D

But really.. you make a good point. Having the numbers would seem to be more conducive to players spotting skill related bugs.

I think the real moral of the story is : everything has its pros and cons.

Jaster wrote:I agreed with you up until the end, Kent (and I wouldn't call it a disaster). There is no such thing as a bug free mud. :D

But really.. you make a good point. Having the numbers would seem to be more conducive to players spotting skill related bugs.

I think the real moral of the story is : everything has its pros and cons.

I agree with you too. Thanks.

Might I suggest that, on log out (limit of once every few hours or so), it give you a generic "You feel like you've gotten better with a sword." or similar message? This would avoid telling people exactly what improved, or even by how much, but still give a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, especially if you move to named ranks instead of numbers being shown to players.