November 2008

• The Future of Quests cruise
• • The Future of Quests Siege)
  • • The Future of Quests Threshold
    • • The Future of Quests Amanda Walker
  • The Future of Quests Marc Bowden
  • • The Future of Quests cruise
  • The Future of Quests John Buehler
  • • The Future of Quests Paolo Piselli
    • • The Future of Quests cruise
      • • The Future of Quests cruise
        • • The Future of Quests John Buehler
          • The Future of Quests Tom Hudson
    • The Future of Quests Aurel
  • The Future of Quests Robert Flesch
  • The Future of Quests Nabil Maynard
  • The Future of Quests Ricky C
  • • The Future of Quests Christopher Lloyd
    • The Future of Quests cruise
    • • The Future of Quests John Buehler
      • The Future of Quests GAMES)
      • • The Future of Quests John Buehler
        • • The Future of Quests GAMES)
          • • The Future of Quests John Buehler
        • The Future of Quests Mike Sellers
        • • The Future of Quests Michael Hartman
          • • The Future of Quests Lachek Butalek
            • • The Future of Quests Threshold
              • The Future of Quests Damion Schubert
            • The Future of Quests GAMES)
            • • The Future of Quests Morris Cox
              • • The Future of Quests Threshold
                • • The Future of Quests Siege)
              • The Future of Quests Threshold
              • • The historical significance of MUDs Threshold
          • The Future of Quests Damion Schubert
            On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Mike Sellers <mike@onlinealchemy.com>wrote:
            
            > And
            > in part it requires that the players care about the NPCs -- they have to
            > have bona fide relationships with the NPCs, which in turn requires that the
            > NPCs have enough emotionality (among other things) for the players to care
            > about them.
            >
            
            The trick for the MMO/MUD designer is that the player is that the player can
            only track so many NPC relationships at one time. Overwhelm the player
            with quests, whether hand-crafted or randomly generated, and at a certain
            point that player will become simply swamped with stories and relationships
            that he's supposed to track. Your odds of getting the player to actually
            care
            at this point are extremely low.
            
            As way of example, one of my pet peeves are long quest lines that MMOs give
            at level 20 that don't conclude until level 35, but when they do, close with
            an
            awesome, unexpected twist! Sorry, but along the way, I may have done
            100-200
            other quests, and have long forgotten stages 1, 2 and 3, and I didn't even
            realize
            stage 4 was part of this questline. So while I'm sure that stage 7 was a
            masterpiece
            worthy of the bard himself, I have to rush to Stratics just to figure out
            what the
            hell is going on. And I'm one of those people that actually *reads* my
            quests.
            
            --d
            
            
            >
            >
          • • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] Mike Rozak
            • The Future of Quests Mike Sellers
    • The Future of Quests Damion Schubert
    • • The Future of Quests Mike Sellers
  • The Future of Quests Lachek Butalek
• [Engines] A suitable 2D engine for a virtual world. Sebastian Anthony
• • [Engines] A suitable 2D engine for a virtual world. cruise
• [Engines] A suitable 2D engine for a virtual world. Mr Seb
• • [Engines] A suitable 2D engine for a virtual world. Daniel James
• NEWS: MUD 30 years old Matt Cruikshank
• • NEWS: MUD 30 years old Michael Hartman
  • • NEWS: MUD 30 years old Richard A. Bartle