Random Achaea Thoughts

Amranu

The hilarious part is, if Achaea directly advertised to Programmers/Linux users they'd probably have quite a bit more success than targetting mainstream gaming markets, simply because these people won't freak out upon seeing a black box with text in it.

Aktillum

Like I mentioned earlier, I do have some success drumming up interest in Achaea using my banner on MMO forums, and sometimes people will express interest.

Here's a recent example:
http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/70225/t2108733-muds-text-based-mmos/

ftr thats my own banner I whipped up in photoshop, I find it more visually appealing than the bannercode design. nobody needs to know the character stats are outdated  

Herenicus

Amranu said:

There was a reddit ad? Damn never heard about that. Ah: http://www.reddit.com/comments/181aqf/achaea_one_of_the_worlds_top_muds_incredible_pvp/ Got torn apart apparently, not overly surprised.

A few negative comments, and they seem to come from former players who had trouble abiding by the user agreement

The hilarious part is, if Achaea directly advertised to Programmers/Linux users they'd probably have quite a bit more success than targetting mainstream gaming markets, simply because these people won't freak out upon seeing a black box with text in it.

Or fantasy readers/writers, given the amount of reading, writing, and content creation the game entails. 

Treyal

Amranu said:

The hilarious part is, if Achaea directly advertised to Programmers/Linux users they'd probably have quite a bit more success than targetting mainstream gaming markets, simply because these people won't freak out upon seeing a black box with text in it.

You don't know how many times I mean to alt tab into my terminal and end up spamming a bunch of linux commands into Mudlet. Or the reverse.

Klendathu

Aktillum said:

Like I mentioned earlier, I do have some success drumming up interest in Achaea using my banner on MMO forums, and sometimes people will express interest.

Here's a recent example:
http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/70225/t2108733-muds-text-based-mmos/

ftr thats my own banner I whipped up in photoshop, I find it more visually appealing than the bannercode design. nobody needs to know the character stats are outdated  

You missed a trick, Aktillum. You can play using the HTML5 client on Android (I have done so in the past)

Nim

Treyal said:

From   : Tecton, the Terraformer
To     : Everyone
Subject: New GMCP additions
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We've just loaded up a new addition to Achaea's GMCP implementation - afflictions and defences!
You'll see this used to great effect in the next version of our HTML5 client, but we've opened this
up for you all now.

How it works
============
Afflictions
-----------
* When you receive an affliction, you'll get a Char.Afflictions.Add GMCP message. Masked and hidden
afflictions (Loki venom, for example) will not send this message.
* Symptoms of masked afflictions will reveal the presence of the affliction and send the Affliction.
Add message.
* Using the DIAGNOSE command will reveal the presence of all masked afflictions and send a Char.
Afflictions.List message.
* Curing afflictions will send a Char.Afflictions.Remove message.

Defences
--------
* Using the DEFENCES/DEF command will send a Char.Defences.List of all of the defences you currently
have active.
* Losing a defence will send a Char.Defences.Remove message. Silently stripped defences will not
send this message.


Penned by My hand on the 25th of Lupar, in the year 680 AF.

Yep, a bit ironic.

omg yes

Santar

Seems like some administrative dissonance going on here...

Amranu

The plan is obviously to make all systems rely on Server Side or GMCP and then remove these at the same time to force people to manual.

Tahquil

I don't understand you people.

This whole argument was prefaced with Sarapis saying "I would love for this to happen, but it's not going to.." and everyone is hot under the collar like it's going to be the next announce post. It was an idle thought that is getting and absurd amount of condemnation for something that's he has said himself, won't happen.

What's the point of pages and pages of arguments against something that is not going to happen anyway?

As for affliction/defs of GMCP. Good, it is lowering the scripting knowledge bar required to get into combat. I for one am happy for the integration.

Amranu

It was mostly a joke

Treyal

Amranu said:

It was mostly a joke

i laughed. a little.

Herenicus

Tahquil said:

What's the point of pages and pages of arguments against something that is not going to happen anyway?

The debate is over whether the shift towards automation is good for the game and, if not, what can feasibly done to bring PvP closer to the original concept of accessible, text-based fighting that values muscle memory and practice over scripted outcomes. Some people are understandably invested in combat-as-programming. To them, PvP is now an opportunity to learn and apply programming experience in a rewarding RP context. To the rest of us, coding and learning to code feels like work. And for at least a few people arguing for the status quo, it is. 

Tahquil

Amranu said:

It was mostly a joke

Oh, sorry. It wasn't an attack on you. The last sentence was my own personal aside that related to no other post or poster. Just the interjection of my personal opinion.

Jhui

I think you've opened a huge can of worms bringing this topic up without a clear direction going forward.  Now, everyone will lie about scripting offense (however minimally they do it), lie about manualing, and belittle and shame people that track/automate anything.  If people seriously adopt the "if you script parts of your offense, you aren't good (are cheating)" mindset that is presented here, the combat scene will go downhill quickly.  This is an absolutely terrible (important, but terrible) topic to bring up unless something is going to be done.

I played the game for 10 years fully manual at top-tier with my own terrible system and had a blast.  I am very competitive, so naturally I adapted with the times to script important portions of my offense that I could theorize, but there was no way to accomplish manually given modern day curing systems.  The amount of manual things I do in combat far outweigh the amounts that are scripted, but I think that will always be the case as long as Makarios keeps at it.  Combat theory is what people are excellent at sitting back on forums discussing, but no one being able to execute these complex strategies in game due to everything that has to be taken into account.

I would absolutely love for an automation ban on offenses (and some defensive bans like autoprio swapping), because I grew up that way and would still be able to perform at a high level.  Some people don't have that in them, and it would be a shame to lose them from the combat scene, but I see why the topic is an issue.  Going forward (years from now), there is no limit on what can or will be automated, so there are really only 2 solutions:  ban automation early on (like right now) or design classes that can manually compete against scripted offenses.

Depending on the players you want to attract/keep, either solution works, but bringing it up is going to alienate a lot of the playerbase and put people on high-horses and make other people lie or continuously fend off accusations that they are scripting their offense.

I would not fault either decision, but I think either decision has to be firm and should be stated.

Austere

Oh how I miss you, @Jhui

Exelethril

Jhui said:

Going forward (years from now), there is no limit on what can or will be automated

This is a scary concept to grasp. I think it's plausible that wholesale scripted offensive systems might become a mainstream thing(akin to svo) if a talented programmer out to make a profit decides to ride that train.

I wouldn't be adverse to an outright ban on automation. In a coding-heavy game like Achaea, I know it's a bit of a mouthful but it'll be nice to preserve some form of the "human" element in years to come, so you actually feel like you're fighting "someone" and not a script.

As an example, code reaction times are hard to replicate : like someone eating aurum/kelp 0.1 seconds before you accidentally hit them with paralysis/slickness. A script would have switched back to paralysis/asthma.

Mishgul

effectiveness of automation depends on ping too. My ping is too bad to accurately track anything, so i have to manually choose what to do next and anticipate well.

Sarapis

Santar said:

Seems like some administrative dissonance going on here...

Not at all. I gave the order for all IRE games to implement gmcp affliction tracking. It's about helping newbies ramp up into the games, which is our top priority generally, and without it we couldn't really passively show people in the client what afflictions they have. As much as I dislike combat automation of all kinds, we'd let people automate everything in the game if it would solve our newbie acquisition problem.

Vaehl

Exelethril said:

As an example, code reaction times are hard to replicate : like someone eating aurum/kelp 0.1 seconds before you accidentally hit them with paralysis/slickness. A script would have switched back to paralysis/asthma.

Actually the above can be manualed. If you practice enough with an affliction class you start to become aware of when they eat an herb after you afflict and should be able to anticipate their second eat, whether they will eat twice on this stab/stare/jab or the next one. You would be prepared to paralyse/asthma again on your own even though it looks like you would have stuck asthma to observers. Even if you get balance back right before they eat you would have to slow down your own offense until they eat (does automation even do this yet?) otherwise they would eat twice on your curare/slickness which could be 2x kelp (assuming stack) or 2x bloodroot and tree.

Honestly, manual can really closely approach the skill of automation in a lot of classes. Just need to practice a lot. The automation method just cuts out a lot of the practice you need in identifying these curing patterns that occur which is kinda lame.

Sarapis

Exelethril said:

This is a scary concept to grasp. I think it's plausible that wholesale scripted offensive systems might become a mainstream thing(akin to svo) if a talented programmer out to make a profit decides to ride that train.

We first realized this about 15 years ago and are glad it hasn't happened yet. There's certainly no theoretical barrier to it happening assuming you can connect to the game with a client that can run elaborate scripts- it's an implementation problem. I don't have a great handle on exactly how big the problem space is though, so it might be like automating Go - something also theoretically possible, but nobody's done it yet to the point where bots can beat the best manual players. 

Cooper

You could definitely make auto offense for any class that is more effective than a person in every scenario, it just hasn't been done yet. There's nothing I can do that a script couldn't do faster and more efficiently.

Cooper

Nimos made a claim one time to me that he had some sort of automatic offense he could turn on and off, and Dyzanru claimed one time he could hands off the keyboard kill people as an Apostate. A few monks have had 'I press one button for every combo and it just sets up limbs for me'. It's definitely popped up a lot, and I think the driving force behind it -not- happening is that automation isn't fun for most people.

Sarapis

Nimos definitely did not have a fully automated offense, whatever he claimed. Can't speak for Dyzanru. 

Regardless, there is no option to flat-out ban offensive automation right now as some of it is totally undetectable (like afflicting tracking that is then manually acted on) without forcing people to use our client and controlling what the client can script. Without our client being more developed than it is (and updates are coming) that's not really an option (I'm also not sure it's technically feasible for us.) Too many MUDers like to use the client they're accustomed to.

We could ban it as a rule, and hit people who are obviously breaking it with some punishments, but I'm not willing to make something undetectable against the rules and then try to guess who is breaking said rule.

So, we'd have to look at targeted measures to inhibit certain kinds of offensive automation, though ultimately that's an arms race between people who don't care about breaking the rules and us. The example I brought up before, for instance, was gating the rate of messages you can send while you're fighting, to make it harder for groups to do group affliction tracking. Of course, it's possible (though more complicated) to route around that by having clients talk to each other outside of Achaea. 

(Even forcing people to use our client isn't a full-proof solution. Aimbots manage to work despite FPS's requiring you use their client, though developers break their capability when discovered, rinse and repeat. Arms race, which isn't to say futile, just that it's not something you do once and then you're done.)

Merador

Cooper said:

You could definitely make auto offense for any class that is more effective than a person in every scenario, it just hasn't been done yet. There's nothing I can do that a script couldn't do faster and more efficiently.

I completely agree. I've had to argue with some people recently about what's theoretically possible to automate in the game. I firmly believe that almost everything combat related in the game can be scripted to be done better than any of us could (exceptions being things like capitalising on "Cooper says, "I have no magnesium!!").

It's why I find arguments like "Occultist is one button and can be automated, but other classes require thought!" ridiculous. Any offence in the game can be automated if you're combat smart enough to anticipate the scenarios and good enough at coding to implement it in code. There are systems to fly aeroplanes automatically. Accounting for a (relatively) limited set of scenarios in a text based game seems trivial in comparison. 

Kuy

Merador said:

Cooper said:

You could definitely make auto offense for any class that is more effective than a person in every scenario, it just hasn't been done yet. There's nothing I can do that a script couldn't do faster and more efficiently.

I completely agree. I've had to argue with some people recently about what's theoretically possible to automate in the game. I firmly believe that almost everything combat related in the game can be scripted to be done better than any of us could (exceptions being things like capitalising on "Cooper says, "I have no magnesium!!").

It's why I find arguments like "Occultist is one button and can be automated, but other classes require thought!" ridiculous. Any offence in the game can be automated if you're combat smart enough to anticipate the scenarios and good enough at coding to implement it in code. There are systems to fly aeroplanes automatically. Accounting for a (relatively) limited set of scenarios in a text based game seems trivial in comparison. 

The complaint with Occultist is more that it's kill method is entirely linear and full of smart-afflicting.  

Merador

Kuy said:

Merador said:

Cooper said:

You could definitely make auto offense for any class that is more effective than a person in every scenario, it just hasn't been done yet. There's nothing I can do that a script couldn't do faster and more efficiently.

I completely agree. I've had to argue with some people recently about what's theoretically possible to automate in the game. I firmly believe that almost everything combat related in the game can be scripted to be done better than any of us could (exceptions being things like capitalising on "Cooper says, "I have no magnesium!!").

It's why I find arguments like "Occultist is one button and can be automated, but other classes require thought!" ridiculous. Any offence in the game can be automated if you're combat smart enough to anticipate the scenarios and good enough at coding to implement it in code. There are systems to fly aeroplanes automatically. Accounting for a (relatively) limited set of scenarios in a text based game seems trivial in comparison. 

The complaint with Occultist is more that it's kill method is entirely linear and full of smart-afflicting.  

Sure, but the discussion should therefore be "Is this class too good when played perfectly?" not "Is it possible to automate this class?". I think that it is too strong when played perfectly (either by a scripted offence, or somebody who's spent tens of hours practicing), so that's why it should be nerfed. 

Naverre

I've always wanted to try to implement an AI that could play Achaea by itself. No human intervention at all. Able to mechanically move through the world, yes, but also roleplay. Not just a simple bot, but a true artificial intelligence. Put the AI to the ultimate Turing test: have all the players of Achaea interact with this AI and not be able to tell that it was, in fact, a machine and not a person. There are a lot of problems in AI that would have to be solved first, but some of the more difficult ones, such as perfect speech recognition and computer vision, wouldn't matter since it's all text based, which is easily parsed if not easily understood. I imagined that the first truly convincing AI would be able to play Achaea and no one would be the wiser.

A bit off topic, but all this talk of automation reminded me of it. Achaea is definitely not the place to try something like that, but it's something I used to think about.

Kuy

Merador said:

Kuy said:

Merador said:

Cooper said:

You could definitely make auto offense for any class that is more effective than a person in every scenario, it just hasn't been done yet. There's nothing I can do that a script couldn't do faster and more efficiently.

I completely agree. I've had to argue with some people recently about what's theoretically possible to automate in the game. I firmly believe that almost everything combat related in the game can be scripted to be done better than any of us could (exceptions being things like capitalising on "Cooper says, "I have no magnesium!!").

It's why I find arguments like "Occultist is one button and can be automated, but other classes require thought!" ridiculous. Any offence in the game can be automated if you're combat smart enough to anticipate the scenarios and good enough at coding to implement it in code. There are systems to fly aeroplanes automatically. Accounting for a (relatively) limited set of scenarios in a text based game seems trivial in comparison. 

The complaint with Occultist is more that it's kill method is entirely linear and full of smart-afflicting.  

Sure, but the discussion should therefore be "Is this class too good when played perfectly?" not "Is it possible to automate this class?". I think that it is too strong when played perfectly (either by a scripted offence, or somebody who's spent tens of hours practicing), so that's why it should be nerfed. 

But... that's why people are so adamant that it needs nerfed.  Perhaps not even nerfed, but just tweaked.  The people who say "occultist is a one button win class" normally don't have enough of a grip on combat mechanics to even make a judgment call - they're just ranting because they're sour.

Merador

I agree, but you should read some of the classleads/discussions about Occultist if you think that this isn't a common view. Much of this discussion should be aimed at the people who are ignorant about coding/automation/what's possible. 

Cooper

Occultist is currently the easiest class to automate afflictions with, and it has been pretty prevalent with the Occie fighters recently. Occie has also been afflicting too fast with arties and is completely broken with torc.

I'm just really, really glad no Occultist has used Occultist to its potential yet.