A great "When I was a famous developer..." story from Richard Bartle (one of the first MMO developers):
Quote:
In MUD2, players stand a chance of catching a cold if they sleep outside in the open and it starts to rain. When they have a cold, there's no cure (no magic is that powerful) and they'll occasionally sneeze and cough, reducing their stamina (hit points). If you sneeze or cough in the presence of another humanoid, they could catch your cold too (unless they only recently had it, in which case they're immune).
Most colds were spread between players, but occasionally a humanoid mobile would get hurt in a fight, sleep (to recover stamina) in the open, and catch a cold. This mobile would then cough on players and perhaps infect them.
Naturally, players took (well, take, as they still do this) this cold and use it as a weapon. The usual tactic is to catch a cold, visit a realm inhabited by some 52 (NPC) dwarfs, and infect one of those with it. They'll pass it to other dwarfs, until eventually most of the dwarf population has a cold. Dwarfs have high strength and dexterity, so they're tough in fights, but their stamina isn't so high; losing 3 stamina to a cough is therefore more worrisome for a dwarf than for a player character. Players will let the infection spread, then weigh in and attack the dwarfs that have reduced stamina or, better still, that are sleeping (no defence against an attack!) to recover the stamina they just coughed away.
Maybe these are some good ideas to incorporate into Arindel's game design ideas?
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