November 2005
- Computer Security for MMOs and Online Games Greg B
- Discussion of MUD system design, development, and implementation Chris Duesing
- Commentary on Recent PlayOn Blog Social Cohesion Christopher Allen
- quest engine design documents? Johnicholas Hines
- Effort to produce a quest Mike Rozak
How much work does it take to produce a quest of the quality used in
WoW or EQII? How many text-MUD "rooms" are needed per hour of
entertainment?
Details...
I am creating a content-production schedule for myself, and am
uncertain how much time to schedule for quests:
WoW has 3000 quests (or so I think I've heard), and about 600 hours
of content (to make a round number). That's means that players
complete a quest once every 12 minutes, on average. My experience
with EQII is that quests take a similar amount of time to complete.
Fable has 30 quests and takes 14 hours to complete, or 25 minutes
per quest.
If you were writing quests for a TEXT MUD, that were of similar
quality/scope/design to those quests in WoW and EQII (or even
Fable), about how long would it take to write a quest? (Of course,
some quests are trivial to write ("Fetch me an apple from that
tree.") and others are very difficult to write. I'm looking for the
"average".) A graphical MUD, of course, takes longer to create a
quests because of new art assets, audio, etc.
My guess, and please tell me if I'm wrong, is that a WoW-quality
quest on a text mud takes 1/4 - 1/2 day to write (on average).
Combining the numbers means that 1 hour of player quest
entertainment = 5 quests = 1.3 to 2.5 days of work by an author. Do
these numbers seem reasonable?
I'm also working on a schedule for rooms, but since my system is
graphical, someplace between a text MUD and a graphical MMORPG, I
need to guestimate how long it will take per "room" myself. However,
another question arises:
How many rooms should be created for N hours of play (on average) so
the player doesn't feel cramped?
Example: A typical text adventure-game is 20-40 hours of
entertainment with around 200 rooms, or 6-12 minutes per
room. (Hitchhiker's guide was about 50 rooms.) Fable has around 40
"locations", for 14 hours of play. A Fable location is "equivalent"
to about 10-20 low-quality/detail MUD/IF rooms, resulting in 1 - 2
minutes per room.
The number of rooms is also related to the number of players in a
shard, with 20-40 rooms per player to prevent overcrowding,
according to Designing Virtual Worlds. At 3 minutes (???) per room,
this means that each user is 60-120 minutes apart in terms of
content. WoW, with 3000 quests and about 3000 users per shard, with
12 minutes per quest, has a higher density, with players 12 minutes
apart from one another in content... which means if you waited at a
quest site, you'd see (on average) someone show up every 12 minutes.
I realize that any numbers you provide are only very rough
estimates.
Thanks
Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au - Effort to produce a quest Ghilardi Filippo
- Effort to produce a quest Mike Rozak
- Effort to produce a quest Kiztent
- Effort to produce a quest Vincent Archer
- Effort to produce a quest Damion Schubert
- Effort to produce a quest Mike Rozak
- Effort to produce a quest Damion Schubert
- Effort to produce a quest Mike Rozak
- Effort to produce a quest Randolf Richardson
- Effort to produce a quest Lachek Butalek
- DGN: Starting with Nothing (Requests for Resources) Sarah Bonner
- DGN: Starting with Nothing (Requests for Resources) lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Starting with Nothing (Requests for Resources) Otis Viles
- Text MUDs; in need of an (r)evolution? John Mauney
- Text MUDs; in need of an (r)evolution? Sean Howard
- Text MUDs; in need of an (r)evolution? Sam Pointon
- Text MUDs; in need of an (r)evolution? John Mauney
- Text MUDs; in need of an (r)evolution? justice@softhome.net
- Text MUDs; in need of an (r)evolution? Lachek Butalek
- Text MUDs; in need of an (r)evolution? lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- Text MUDs; in need of an (r)evolution? Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: Personal NPCs Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: Personal NPCs CHRISTOPHER LLOYD
- DESIGN: Personal NPCs Mike Rozak
- DESIGN: Personal NPCs cruise
- DESIGN: Personal NPCs lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DESIGN: Personal NPCs Mike Rozak
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains Roger Hicks
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains cruise
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains Lydia Leong
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains Dave Mitchell
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains Lost
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains Lachek Butalek
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains Lost
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains jack fredricks
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains Mike Rozak
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains Arnau Josep Rosselló Castelló
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains Damien Neil
- Dynamic Quests & Event Chains ceo
- DESIGN: Personal NPCs cruise
- DESIGN: Personal NPCs Jaycen Rigger
- (no subject) Koster, Raph
- Removing the Massively from MMOG (long) cruise
- Removing the Massively from MMOG (long) Lachek Butalek
- MMO a temporary phenomenon? John Buehler
- Sexism in design lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- Sexism in design Marc Bowden
- Sexism in design Louis d'Ambra
- Sexism in design Sean Kelly
- Sexism in design Amanda Walker
- Value Brian "Ayavaron" Ross
- Griefing Brian "Ayavaron" Ross
- RE : Removing the Massively from MMOG (long) Jean, Yannick
- RE : Removing the Massively from MMOG (long) Marc Bowden
- RE : Removing the Massively from MMOG (long) Lost
- RE : Removing the Massively from MMOG (long) Damion Schubert
- RE : Removing the Massively from MMOG (long) Lachek Butalek
- Changing Midstream (SWG's New Look) Sean Howard
- Changing Midstream (SWG's New Look)
- Changing Midstream (SWG's New Look) Sean Howard
- Changing Midstream (SWG's New Look) Caliban Darklock
- Changing Midstream (SWG's New Look) Sean Howard
- Changing Midstream (SWG's New Look) Ryan S. Dancey
- Changing Midstream (SWG's New Look) Jeffrey Kesselman
- Changing Midstream (SWG's New Look) Ken Sewell
- Changing Midstream (SWG's New Look) Sean Howard
- Changing Midstream (SWG's New Look) Joe Ludwig
- Discussion of MUD system design, development, and implementation Chris Duesing