September 2007

• Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Damion Schubert
• • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Aurel Mihai
  • • [DESIGN] Where massive? John Buehler
    • • [DESIGN] Where massive? Damion Schubert
      • • [DESIGN] Where massive? Aurel Mihai
        • • [DESIGN] Where massive? Richard A. Bartle
          • [DESIGN] Where massive? Damion Schubert
    • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Michael Hartman
    • • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Roger Hicks
      • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Christopher Lloyd
      • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Damion Schubert
      • • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Michael Hartman
        • • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Damion Schubert
          • • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Michael Hartman
            • • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore andMMOs) Mike Sellers
              • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Vincent Archer
              • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) John Buehler
• [DESIGN] Character Growth Models (Was: Removing the almighty experience point...) Ian Hess
• • [DESIGN] Character Growth Models (Was: Removing the almighty experience point...) Aurel Mihai
  • • [DESIGN] Character Growth Models (Was: Removing the almighty experience point...) cruise
• [BIZ] Community-building books Mike Rozak
• [MEDIA] Intel Purchases Game Tools Firm Havok Mike Rozak
• • [MEDIA] Intel Purchases Game Tools Firm Havok Jon Mayo
  • • [MEDIA] Intel Purchases Game Tools Firm Havok Peter Keeler
    • • [MEDIA] Intel Purchases Game Tools Firm Havok Mike Rozak
• [DESIGN] Factor of 16 Mike Rozak
• • [DESIGN] Factor of 16 Aurel Mihai
  • [DESIGN] Factor of 16 Michael Hartman
• [DESIGN] Player-generated content cruise
• • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Lachek Butalek
  • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Darryl Woodford
    • [DESIGN] Player-generated content cruise
    • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content John Buehler
      • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content cruise
        • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content John Buehler
          • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Damion Schubert
            • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content John Buehler
            • [DESIGN] Player skill vs. Character Skill [was: Player-generated content] cruise
            • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Vincent Archer
            • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content John Buehler
  • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Caliban Darklock
  • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content cruise
    • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Tom Hudson
  • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Matt Chatterley
    On 18/09/2007, cruise <cruise@casual-tempest.net> wrote:
    >
    > [Snip]
    
    Assuming a reasonably "standard" MMOG, with various quests that provide
    > achievements or rewards, how can you ensure player-provided quests
    > follow the difficulty/reward curve well? Is it even worth doing? What
    > other forms of player-generated content is possible to support in-game?
    > Any experience with such systems?
    >
    
    I'm going to take a slightly different tack to approaching this than other
    posters have thus far. Please note I've never DONE this, although elements
    of it are drawn from a long-dead project I was involved in.
    
    Lets think for a moment of a different genre of game - the RTS - e.g.
    Warcraft; before it was a whole world.
    
    Now, lets propose that we create a world engine, drawing on elements of
    both. Instead of playing a single character, you oversee your society of
    creatures.
    
    Character generation begins with the creation of the base model for your
    creature - settings its attributes, physical look, naming it, and so forth -
    then you are allocated a bit of land, upon which you can create your first
    settlement.
    
    Growth (or levelling) is achieved by gathering resources, expanding your
    settlement, and perhaps even setting up new ones. The world map could be
    manually or procedurally generated - as long as it is kept at a size related
    to the number of active players, so that it isn't too large or too small.
    
    As space becomes constrained, tensions will undoubtedly grow - requiring
    players to work together to expand (perhaps as far as integrating their
    societies to pool resources) - or to fight one another to claim valuable
    land and resources.
    
    Individual members of each society could have roles which depict their
    general function (hunter/gatherer, warrior, priest, mage, civillian, etc) -
    within which they would follow AI determined or Player-given lists of tasks.
    But we could permit the player to "sieze control" of an individual and play
    "first person" at times - perhaps if launching a raid upon an enemy.
    
    In terms of "quests", these could be formalized within a framework whereby
    the player sets objectives for his people - the rewards would typically be
    predetermined e.g. "I need more iron, therefore my reward for completing
    objective A (Capture the iron mine to the east) is simply access to the
    iron" - or the game could compute a point value against these objectives,
    and the player could be permitted to spend these points on upgrades.
    
    Snack for thought!
    
    --Matt
• [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace cruise
• • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Caliban Darklock
  • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Ammon Lauritzen
  • • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace cruise
    • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Bristle
    • • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Shannon Sullivan
      • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Dave Scheffer
      • • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Raph Koster
      • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Morris Cox
  • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Matt Chatterley
  • • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Dana V. Baldwin
    • • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Matt Chatterley
      • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Morris Cox
    • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Vincent Archer
• [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs Michael Hartman