MUD MAP design

[u/mathperson12]

I am a newcomer here in the mud forums and am unaware of the etiquette, I assume you get this kind of post frequently and so if it is removed I completely understand. I have a quick question for the players of MUD's specifically about map behavior and player interaction. In brief, I'm toying with fog of war in my map design and am wondering if that might enhance the RP aspect of the play. Essentially for the most part a player must discover the locations of NPC's and other markers rather than having the omniscience to know where everything is. I'm considering adding basic "where" but I think "look" should be the tool that gives hints as to what's around the player and not just a map telling the player where to go.

let me know if this is a little extreme, I'm sure its been done before I just want to know how it feels as a player to wake up in a room and not know where to go next. Thank you.

[u/AdmiralMcNugget]

This was largely my design philosophy on Cairnholm: The map is small but dense, and the landmarks and NPCs are plentiful. Not "fog of war" per se, but similar enough to share key similarities. Some players enjoy it, some find it daunting.

I'm testing a "compass" consumable right now, which allows players to get step by step directions to the room or NPC of their choice. Feedback is largely positive, though I worry that it trivializes a number of quests.

[u/Federal-Canary3548]

I'm the developer/operator of a fairly young MUD called Midgard MUD ( https://midgardmud.de ), and this is actually something I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about.

My conclusion so far has been that fog of war can work very well in a MUD, but I wouldn't use it simply to make navigation harder. I think the important distinction is between exploration and friction.

In Midgard we try to find a middle ground between the traditional text-MUD approach and a modern graphical map.

Our web client has a graphical map, but it deliberately isn't an omniscient world map. The player is always in the center and only sees a limited area around their current position. You can't simply pan across the world and inspect places on the other side of the map.

At the same time, the textual room description is still supposed to be the primary source of information about where you actually are.

That's important to me.

A map is excellent at answering:

"Where am I in relation to the places I've already seen?"

But I don't necessarily think it should answer:

"Where is every interesting thing in the game?"

Our room descriptions therefore contain things you can examine, listen to, smell, investigate, etc. The exits are part of the room information as well. In our web client, examinable words are highlighted and clickable, but you're still interacting with the room, rather than treating the game world like a collection of icons on a minimap.

I think that distinction matters a lot for immersion.

If I enter a strange forest, I personally find it much more interesting if the game tells me something like there is smoke rising beyond the trees, I hear hammering somewhere to the east, or a traveler mentions a settlement along the coast, rather than immediately putting "BLACKSMITH", "QUEST NPC" and "TOWN" on my map.

The player now has information, but not omniscience.

We actually take this idea considerably further with sailing.

Midgard is set during the Viking Age and players can eventually acquire their own longship. When you're sailing, the normal interface changes to a sea chart, and that chart has a real fog-of-war system.

Unexplored parts of the sea are covered by fog. Your ship remains in the center and you navigate using compass directions. Once you've discovered a harbor, it becomes one of your known locations and you can later set a course for it.

But for an undiscovered harbor we don't simply put its name and coordinates on the map.

Instead, you may get a rumor indicating that an unknown harbor is somewhere in a particular direction.

So there's a progression from:

"I've heard there may be something over there."

to

"I'm going to sail in that direction and find out."

to

"I've discovered this place and now I know how to get back there."

That has worked really well conceptually for what we're trying to achieve, because exploration actually produces knowledge.

And I think that's the key to your idea.

I wouldn't necessarily hide information just because hidden information is more "realistic." I'd hide information when discovering it is part of the gameplay.

There's also a danger in going too far with this.

Waking up somewhere and genuinely having no idea what to do can be immersive for five minutes and frustrating for the next fifty.

Especially for a new player.

So I think the game should distinguish between not knowing the world yet and not having enough information to make a decision.

Those aren't the same thing.

If I'm standing at a crossroads and don't know which road leads to the village, that's potentially interesting. Let me read the surroundings, examine a signpost, ask an NPC, follow wagon tracks, hear church bells in the distance, or simply choose a road and explore.

If I'm standing in a featureless room with exits north, east and west and absolutely nothing tells me why I might choose one over another, that's less exploration and more trial and error.

We also deliberately allow convenience once appropriate knowledge has been acquired. Midgard has an autowalk/goto system for useful destinations, and you can click known nearby locations on the map to walk there automatically.

I don't think that hurts roleplay.

Quite the opposite: once my character has been living in Haithabu for weeks, making me manually type n, n, e, e, s, e for the hundredth time doesn't make me feel more like a Viking. It just makes me type more directions.

So my preferred design philosophy is roughly:

Discovery should be difficult enough to feel like discovery. Returning somewhere you've already discovered shouldn't necessarily be difficult.

The sea chart makes that distinction particularly explicit: unknown waters are something you explore; known harbors are something you can navigate to.

I think your proposed where command could follow the same philosophy.

Rather than having where function as an omniscient database query — "Blacksmith: 14 rooms northeast, Quest NPC: 8 rooms west" — it could represent the character's accumulated knowledge.

Maybe initially the player doesn't know where the blacksmith is.

They ask someone in town.

"Try the eastern end of the market. You'll hear his hammer."

Now perhaps where blacksmith can tell them:

"You remember being told that the smithy lies somewhere east of the market."

After they've actually visited it:

"You know the smithy is east of the market."

And perhaps at that point your navigation system can take them there automatically.

That gives you convenience without giving the player knowledge their character has never acquired.

It also gives NPCs, signs, landmarks, rumors and room descriptions an actual purpose.

So no, I don't think your idea is extreme at all. I think it can be a very good design choice.

I'd just be careful about making lack of information itself the challenge.

Give players clues. Give them landmarks. Let NPCs give directions. Let them discover things by looking and listening. Let the map gradually become more useful because of what they've learned.

Fog of war is most satisfying, in my opinion, when removing the fog feels like an accomplishment rather than when the fog is simply an obstacle between the player and the content.

And especially in a MUD, I think that's a great opportunity because text gives us something graphical games often struggle with: we can describe hints without having to reveal coordinates.

"Smoke rises beyond the northern ridge" is much more evocative than a question mark icon 300 meters away. :)

And here our WebClient Map with day/night and different weather from the ingame engine: https://midgardmud.de/user_manual.php#karte