Weight range for humans

[Qzzrbl]

Alrighty, I get what you're on about. 

Still though. The fewer hoops you gotta jump through to suspend disbelief, the better imho.

[FantasyWriter]

I pay much more attention to a main description than I do assess -v.
Generally the only time I ever assess -v someone is to get their relative age.

[bmburmas]

When someone uses real-world physics and biology to argue for or against MUD mechanics, I'll keep reminding them that MUD mechanics don't have to comply with real-world physics and biology.

Obviously MUD mechanics don't have to comply with real-world science, but unless there's some sort of compelling reason for them not to comply, it makes no sense to have the game differ so drastically from human anatomy.

Say, for instance, Zalanthan humans had two toes on each foot. That would be stupid, wouldn't it? Zalanthan humans are HUMANS, they are Homo Sapiens Sapiens and their anatomical irregularities make for a lessened roleplaying experience.

Realize that the current limitations mean that the largest human only weighs 1.5 times as much as the smallest human. Does that make any sense at all? There is literally no animal species on Earth for which the weight range is so narrow.

[Lizzie]

When someone uses real-world physics and biology to argue for or against MUD mechanics, I'll keep reminding them that MUD mechanics don't have to comply with real-world physics and biology.

Obviously MUD mechanics don't have to comply with real-world science, but unless there's some sort of compelling reason for them not to comply, it makes no sense to have the game differ so drastically from human anatomy.

Say, for instance, Zalanthan humans had two toes on each foot. That would be stupid, wouldn't it? Zalanthan humans are HUMANS, they are Homo Sapiens Sapiens and their anatomical irregularities make for a lessened roleplaying experience.

Realize that the current limitations mean that the largest human only weighs 1.5 times as much as the smallest human. Does that make any sense at all? There is literally no animal species on Earth for which the weight range is so narrow.

Again, it doesn't have to make sense when compared to humans on the planet Earth, because it isn't humans on the planet Earth. If you're having that much trouble wrapping your mind around the concept that we're dealing with fantasy characters in an alien fantasy world, call them Zalanthans instead of Humans. They're not humans as we know of them on the planet Earth. They're fantasy characters that the admin of this game originally assigned the name "Human" to the race. Dwarves on Zalanthas are nothing like dwarves on earth, and you're not arguing that dwarves should have hair, and not have a focus, are you? Because - there ARE dwarves on the planet earth. They're humans, with a genetic disorder called Dwarfism.

Since you're not having any trouble separating the concept of fantasy fictional zalanthan dwarves from the concept of earth dwarves, I'm sure you will eventually learn to separate the concept of fantasy fictional zalanthan humans from the concept of earth humans.

[Patuk]

Stop arguing against change for the sake of it already.. Increasing the weight range for characters takes no more effort than the animation of a simple npc, and it makes more sense for the human weight range to be broadened than for these mental gymnastics you're trying to put us through here. You're coming off as silly and catty more than sensible here, when the thread's proposed idea isn't one that'd break your experience in any meaningful way at all.

[bmburmas]

When someone uses real-world physics and biology to argue for or against MUD mechanics, I'll keep reminding them that MUD mechanics don't have to comply with real-world physics and biology.

Obviously MUD mechanics don't have to comply with real-world science, but unless there's some sort of compelling reason for them not to comply, it makes no sense to have the game differ so drastically from human anatomy.

Say, for instance, Zalanthan humans had two toes on each foot. That would be stupid, wouldn't it? Zalanthan humans are HUMANS, they are Homo Sapiens Sapiens and their anatomical irregularities make for a lessened roleplaying experience.

Realize that the current limitations mean that the largest human only weighs 1.5 times as much as the smallest human. Does that make any sense at all? There is literally no animal species on Earth for which the weight range is so narrow.

Again, it doesn't have to make sense when compared to humans on the planet Earth, because it isn't humans on the planet Earth. If you're having that much trouble wrapping your mind around the concept that we're dealing with fantasy characters in an alien fantasy world, call them Zalanthans instead of Humans. They're not humans as we know of them on the planet Earth. They're fantasy characters that the admin of this game originally assigned the name "Human" to the race. Dwarves on Zalanthas are nothing like dwarves on earth, and you're not arguing that dwarves should have hair, and not have a focus, are you? Because - there ARE dwarves on the planet earth. They're humans, with a genetic disorder called Dwarfism.

Since you're not having any trouble separating the concept of fantasy fictional zalanthan dwarves from the concept of earth dwarves, I'm sure you will eventually learn to separate the concept of fantasy fictional zalanthan humans from the concept of earth humans.

The comparison with dwarves is so ridiculous that I'm not even going to address it. You know why that argument isn't valid.

Regardless of whether Zalanthan humans are actually the same species as Terran humans, they were obviously intended to be as similar to us as possible. If you can justify Zalanthans being different from us in any randomly picked physical regard just because the code is written that way, then there is no reason that they should be identical to us in every other sense, nor is there a reason that they should even be called humans.

Furthermore, it simply is not possible for a species to develop in such a way that its largest individual member is only 1.5 times as large as its smallest individual member (unless that species is on the verge of extinction and has an accordingly small sample size).

[FantasyWriter]

Is anyone here actually stating that what we have currently is realistic, or are you just arguing that it doesn't need to be changed?
All I see is people saying that the ranges should be expanded to allow for greater flexibility and more realism and then people respond with psudo-science?

Raise your hand if you do not want a change, and please state why...

The short bearded man waits.

[whitt]

I don't want this change because I don't see a compelling need for it.

Are the current weight ranges perfect?  Not necessarily.  Nor are they immersion breaking unless you actively seek to make them so.

Would I trade a single "simple NPC animation" for a change that, I'll bet, the majority of the player base would never notice?  Given that I work in IT?  Not a chance. 

This "simple" change likely impacts all sorts of things from armor sizing to combat mechanics that compare relative sizes to potential scripts triggered by the weight of the individual in the room, to Amos only knows what else. 

To be followed shortly by the time consuming wave of requests to staff if the change was implemented from "Oh my character should be a size 0 now that it's available" to "I picked the biggest size I could, but it wasn't big enough and now I can be bigger" to "Hey, I don't want one of the new sizes, but since you're changing everyone's size..."

In short, what's the real ROI here?  You can assess -v someone with a little more granularity?

[Cutthroat]

I don't want this change because I don't see a compelling need for it.

Are the current weight ranges perfect?  Not necessarily.  Nor are they immersion breaking unless you actively seek to make them so.

Would I trade a single "simple NPC animation" for a change that, I'll bet, the majority of the player base would never notice?  Given that I work in IT?  Not a chance. 

This "simple" change likely impacts all sorts of things from armor sizing to combat mechanics that compare relative sizes to potential scripts triggered by the weight of the individual in the room, to Amos only knows what else. 

To be followed shortly by the time consuming wave of requests to staff if the change was implemented from "Oh my character should be a size 0 now that it's available" to "I picked the biggest size I could, but it wasn't big enough and now I can be bigger" to "Hey, I don't want one of the new sizes, but since you're changing everyone's size..."

In short, what's the real ROI here?  You can assess -v someone with a little more granularity?

It's not an urgent change or even a necessary one. But any adjustment to the weight range would still offer players more of a choice, even if it is a minor one. With regards to the work put in and ROI, it's a bit strange discussing those sorts of things about a proposed coded change to the game without any knowledge of the code beyond speculation. The only thing we have perspective to talk about is what it would add as players. And from the perspective of a player, it's a relatively small change but one that adds a little more variety.

As for players sending requests to staff, there were far bigger changes enacted that players with living characters had no chance of getting - direction sense skill, extended subguilds, and probably some other things I forgot - so I really doubt that changing the weight range will result in an overload of requests asking for the weight to be changed since staff could just say that the ranges apply from characters created from now on.

[bartenderer]

Remember that height and weight affect skills also though. I imagine the current limits will remain the current limits for balance. I once had spec apped a delf that was much taller than the tallest end of the limit and it had some interesting affects on combat.

[Lizzie]

I'd just like to make a "medium" character whose numeric values fit their mdesc. Someone right in the middle of the height and weight for their race. It's not codedly possible because there are -four- weight values per race. You need five to choose the one in the middle.

[Narf]

I doubt it would disrupt code all that much. Halflings used to be a playable race, so the code should still support small characters. Elves are a playable race, so it would support larger characters.

[whitt]

I doubt it would disrupt code all that much.

Siddies for everytime this has been said.

[RogueGunslinger]

I doubt it would disrupt code all that much.

Siddies for everytime this has been said.

It's up to staff to decide what is worth their time or not. Speculating is useless.

[whitt]

It's up to staff to decide what is worth their time or not. Speculating is useless.

Totally agree, though I was commenting much more on the number of times anyone in IT will hear variations of "How big of a deal can it be" in their daily lives. 

[Harmless]

I don't give a rat's ass one way or the other

[X-D]

I don't really think the range should be increased...if you want something outside the norm, special app.

I Do however think the current range should be in stones not tenstone.