December 2003
- DGN - Method of controling NPC's. Tony Hoyt
- DGN - Method of controling NPC's. J C Lawrence
- DGN - Method of controling NPC's. Sean Middleditch
- DGN - Method of controling NPC's. Vincent Archer
- DGN - Method of controling NPC's. Sheela Caur'Lir
- First Everquest Server Closure? Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- First Everquest Server Closure? Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- First Everquest Server Closure? Vincent Archer
- Game Designer and Senior Engineer Positions Adam Carpenter
- Spike TV"s Video Game Awards Michael Tresca
- Spike TV"s Video Game Awards Zach Collins {Siege}
- Spike TV"s Video Game Awards Rayzam
- Spike TV"s Video Game Awards Otis Viles
- Spike TV"s Video Game Awards Michael Tresca
- Spike TV"s Video Game Awards Daniel Anderson
- R: DGN - Method of controling NPC's. Ghilardi Filippo
- MDC 2004 - Call for Speakers mdc-proposals@kanga.nu
- MDC 2004 - Call for Papers mdc-proposals@kanga.nu
- Current State of MMOG's? Chris
- Current State of MMOG's? Jason Murdick
- Current State of MMOG's? Chris
- Current State of MMOG's? Jason Murdick
- Current State of MMOG's? Jeff Crane
- Current State of MMOG's? Sheela Caur'Lir
- Current State of MMOG's? Brian 'Psychochild' Green
- Current State of MMOG's? Scott Jennings
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 7 Chanur Silvarian
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Brent P. Newhall
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Ammon Lauritzen
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Nicolai Hansen
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death John Buehler
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Paul Schwanz
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death ghovs
Brent P. Newhall wrote:
> After reading the massive -- and fascinating -- thread on
> entertainment, spawning, etc. in games, I had the following
> thought. Would love to know what you all think.
> What would a game look like, if monsters stayed dead? E.g.,
> monsters can only be added to the game if the admins explicitly
> add them.
> Might this not create a game in which individual monsters are much
> more powerful -- thus requiring a lot of team co-operation to kill
> -- but less common?
> How might this affect the "levelling treadmill?"
If you were to unleash unique monsters in, say, Everquest, you will
see a horde swarm it within an hour, and kill it. High-end raiding
guilds tend to have scouts running around known spawn points of
timed spawns, so it isn't too far-fetched to expect them to patrol
everywhere for anything, should that prove rewarding. In a more
generalized view, if _all_ mobs must be spawned by a DM of some
sort, you either devise an automated one very soon, or you start
running low on players while you're practically always out of mobs.
The whole idea of an RPG, at least for me, is that you run around
and possibly kill mobs, or flee from them, or sneak past guards. If
all the guards happen to be killed hours before the DM shows up, I
can't have any of that stuff, thus making things rather dull. Now,
unless I can somehow make things show up, I'm going to log off and
do something else. The whole rationale behind automatic respawning
of mobs is that someone else can have a go at them, or the same
person can have a go again, thus increasing the use of
content. Given the amount of work invested in creating one mob, I'm
pretty sure people can kill what I create faster than I can churn it
out.
Ofcourse, we seem to get by just fine without immediate respawns in
real life, where our world has by and large managed to prevent
somehow to depopulate altogether. But while there is no god which
will respawn me after I'm killed, I seem to be killed rather less
often than most scrawny rats in MUD newbie zones too, so the only
way you could justify not using automatic respawning timers is by
reducing the rather voracious appetite of the average bloodlusting
player. I have no idea at all how to discourage a player who is able
to kill short of making him unable to kill, which will lead us right
back to boredom.
Now, as for the effect on the level treadmill when mobs are a
precious and rare resource, it's bad. Few players will advance
quickly, and those who do will be able to effortlessly killsteal
newbies, thus locking them out of progress altogether, since once
the high-level guy gets bored of killstealing, the mobs probably ran
out again. It is not at all impossible to kill at a rate ten times
as fast as a newbie could, and that would certainly be so if you
wanted characters able to advance over a long period of time.
All in all, I find the idea of DM-spawned monsters unworkable, no
matter how poetic the idea might seem. Either you'll have an empty,
boring world, or you'll have a DM spawning monsters all the time,
which is not materially different from timed respawns, except that
the person doing it might feel quite bored doing what might as well
be automated.
rgds,
ghovs - Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Chanur Silvarian
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death J C Lawrence
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death J C Lawrence
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Sheela Caur'Lir
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Ben Kirman
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Sean Middleditch
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Sheela Caur'Lir
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Jason Murdick
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Scott Jennings
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death games@anthemion.org
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death John Buehler
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Paul Schwanz
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death games@anthemion.org
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death John Arras
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Corpheous Andrakin
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Edward Glowacki
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Sean Kelly
- Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death Scion Altera
- Thought Experiment: Permanent MonsterDeath John Buehler
- Utopian World (Removing access to entertainment) Sheela Caur'Lir
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 8 Chanur Silvarian
- The Skaff Effect Michael Tresca
- The Skaff Effect Sheela Caur'Lir
- The Skaff Effect Ryan S. Dancey
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 9 Chanur Silvarian
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 9 Paul Schwanz
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 9 Rayzam
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 9 Tom "cro" Gordon
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 9 Freeman, Jeff
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 9 Paul Schwanz
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 9 Sheela Caur'Lir
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 9 Sheela Caur'Lir
- [ANNC] new list for technical discussion Bruce Mitchener
- The Mind's Eye Matt Mihaly
- [BUS] Browser-based games ceo
- Online gamer in China wins virtual theft suit David Durant
- Alternate Level Mechanics (was: ghost mode) Eli Stevens
- FW: Socialization in Online Games Christopher Allen
- Whimsy Patricia Pizer
- TECH Looking for light graphical clients Ian McDonald
- TECH Looking for light graphical clients Mats Lidstrom
- Simulated societies (Thought Experiment: Permanent Monster Death) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- [BIZ] The Web's New Currency Michael Tresca
- [BIZ] The Web's New Currency Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- [BIZ] The Web's New Currency Chris Duesing