Posted by Proud Blade(VIP) on October 16, 2000 at 12:56:32:
In Reply to: Take heart, buckeroo! posted by Nepenthe(IMM) on October 16, 2000 at 12:20:15:
I'm guessing from the amount of time you've been around the MUD, along with your occupation, that you are a blazingly fast typist. I'm medium-fast myself, but error-prone, so most of what I use my client for falls into this category. I don't like triggers, with the exception of the ones I use for highlighting important text, but I have a decent array of macros to execute common commands. Otherwise, I'd waste a lot of time trying to "mruder" my enemies. If I was a faster, more accurate typist, I'd agree with you- clients can become a crutch for some people, and it really shows when you catch them off guard. ("Wait! I need to reset my variables, turn off my ranking triggers, and stop trying to eat while I'm being tripped to death.") But I don't care suffer at the more strategy oriented aspects of CF because of typing problems. That being said, I think typing/client skills are a small part of PKing, and only because increased speed of command entry makes certain classes more dangerous. PB, recent recipient of an unsuccessful "emote has summoned you!" trick. *shakes his fist at the heavens* > I've been using just telnet since day one. While I don't think I'm as sharp as I once might have been, it's safe to say I do all right. > > Triggers that initiate combat seem to be the only good way to "chase" someone once they've started fleeing... > The problem with triggers or automating things in general (without resorting to the kind of massively evil AI I occasionally dream of writing) is that it breaks down as soon as you have insufficient information or information other than what you expected. Quiet moving and autosneak, to name just two examples, are going to rob you of the information you'd want to trigger on. > The other danger there is that a trigger is going to give other players (should they be clever enough to figure out that A) You have a trigger and B) What it is) a chance to control what your character does. If I think that emoting has summoned you! is going to get you killed, watch out. > The only real good solution is to become *good* at chasing people. Knowing the areas helps. Being fast (both player reaction and connection speed) helps as well.
> > My question, then: Is it, for all intensive purposes, a _requirement_ that one connect via a MUD-specific client in order to be an effective PKer? Or am I just not creative/skilled enough to pull it off w/ plain-jane telnet?