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
- 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
Lost wrote:
> On 11/17/05, Roger Hicks <pidgepot@hotpop.com> wrote:
>> There's been a lot of discussion recently on improving quests to
>> avoid the constant boring flow of "fed-ex" and monster
>> slaying. As
> The other thing about quests today is that thery're not
> dynamic. They don't give the player enough choices to decide their
> fate. I understand that this is hard to program in, but could be
> worked in with planning in the early stages of a games
> development. My friends complain about stale quests all the time
> and most of them never read the text of a mission. I always have
> to ask, "why?" The simple answer is they're just running the quest
> treadmill. They know that when they do this quest, it won't
> matter what they do, the outcome is all the same. So what if we,
> as designers, spice it up a bit by giving the NPCs memory? Or
> allowing the player to make choices that affect how their
> character is perceived by the other NPCs in the game? I thought
> that Neverwinter Nights did a good job of this. Though, ultimately
> the game is linear, but there were changes here and there
> depending on what the player did.
> There is no reason for this not to work in an MMO/MUD. Most games
> have some sort of reputation system in place. Usually, it's just
I think the underlying problem here is that no-one has yet worked
out a way to fake it convincingly, and in games, until you can fake
something, it seems it's always too much programming power and too
much programmer time to make it rich enough to be noticed, let alone
enjoyed.
I'm thinking back to post-mortems from e.g. NWN, Dungeon Siege, and
all the others, where the dev teams describe the lengths they went
to to incorporate factions and responsive not-on-rails game
plot. Every time, at the end of the day the effects are so subtle
that the average player hardly notices it, despite the huge amount
of effort thats gone in. Or else the system is so fragile / unstable
that it has to be largely ripped out of the final build.
c.f.:
- simulation of populations and race-race wars vs. simply
providing behaviours that emulate it convincingly and require
almost no processing power on the server - but also are inherently
stable
- simulation of economies vs. source/sink economies
- simulation of physics vs. faking it in oh-so-many ways until the
last few years
- true, perspective-correct, 3D graphics vs. 2.5D, isometric 3D,
et al
Adam M
- 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