Re:Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs): What Are They? and How to Play
by CodeMage on Monday March 01, 2021 @02:41AM
(#26300499)
I tried Achaea after I got too frustrated with MUME. What turned me off wasn't the way people could pay to avoid grind, but rather how you absolutely needed a client script for combat. If you didn't have some kind of script that provided automated reactions, PVE was really hard and you couldn't even consider PVP. And, of course, people who made the best scripts were charging for them.
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Re:Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs): What Are They? and How to Play
by Twisol on Monday March 01, 2021 @05:19AM
(#26301317)
That's true! I did very little combat overall -- I spent most of my time on the social side of the game -- but I did build a few of my own convenience scripts anyway, so the criticism is well-founded.
You can get by in PvE without anything overly complex, and it's honestly more fun to figure out how to deal with the damage and affliction patterns from individual monsters yourself than relying on an autocure system. (Achaea has strict rules on what goes beyond the line of "botting", too.) But yeah, PvP essentially required some automation to let you focus on tactics instead.
Re:Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs): What Are They? and How to Play
by CodeMage on Monday March 01, 2021 @11:01AM
(#26304047)
Yeah, I remember the rules about "botting", too. I don't know if they changed a lot since I played, but back then they basically amounted to "don't automate your character to farm while idle". In light of the pay-to-avoid-grind system, it didn't take me too long to conclude that the rules were pretty much "don't affect our bottom line, anything else goes".
Re:Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs): What Are They? and How to Play
by aurelius12 on Monday March 01, 2021 @04:31PM
(#26308706)
Because botting is basically impossible for us to detect algorithmically (we're a tiny company and don't have the resources to engage in that kind of battle with botters), our line boils down to, "If we come and talk to you and you don't reply, you're not playing the game and that's not allowed."
It's the only standard for botting that works for us.
Re:Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs): What Are They? and How to Play
by iron_ball on Monday March 01, 2021 @01:36PM
(#26306289)
True, but not strictly true. I played with 100% manual attacks and cures, but made heavy use of color coding to recognize threats in the rapid scroll of incoming text. It wasn't any harder than playing a competitive puzzle game: recognize colors, make matches, try to throw sand in your opponent's gears and make combos faster than they can.