January 2009

• [Design] on the game mechanics of open questing Siege)
• • RANT: The Future of Quests Mike Rozak
  • • RANT: The Future of Quests Amanda Walker
    • • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] cruise
      • • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] Amanda Walker
        • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] Mike Sellers
        • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] John Buehler
        • • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] cruise
          • • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] John Buehler
          • Wikia MUD project Raph Koster
          • • Wikia MUD project Nabil Maynard
            • • Wikia MUD project Raph Koster
            • Wikia MUD project Peter Harkins
        • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] Mike Oxford
        • • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] cruise
          • • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] Damion Schubert
            • • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] Threshold
              • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] John Buehler
              • • Players are shallow [was: The Future of Quests] Mike Sellers
    • RANT: The Future of Quests Mike Sellers
    • • RANT: The Future of Quests Damion Schubert
      • • RANT: The Future of Quests Mike Rozak
          Damion Schubert:
          > I've worked on autogeneration before, and I now work at a company that
          > champions hand-crafted content, and I can tell you, it is nearly
          > impossible
          > to autogenerate content with the emotional depth and resonance that
          > hand-written content provides.
          
          I agree, mostly.
          
          I think that the core content needs to be hand-crafted. However, there can
          still be procedural content placed around the world. Both Bioware and
          Bethesda use this trick. There's the core quest chain, which is very tightly
          written. Around that are hand-written but more cookie-cutter FedEx side
          quests - which, if you squint, could almost be procedurally gnerated. Around
          them are (basically) wandering monsters, which are procedural.
          
          I don't think you'd disagree with this. I just wanted to point out that
          hand-crafted and procedural both have their places.
          
          
          > There's a serious gotcha here, though. Is there anything
          > more ham-handed than 'this time... it's personal'? Doesn't anyone else
          > roll their eyeballs when Robin and/or Aunt May have to get saved again?
          > Would you really like to play a Batman game where your full-time job is
          > rescuing Robin and Alfred?
          
          Make a game which is not about saving the world, and which is not about
          killing. It's about something more mundane, like helping Aunt May hunt down
          a long-lost sister. Find the sister, see the cut scene, end the game.
          
          I post on interactive fiction and adventure game forums and tell people
          there they should look at MUDs and MMORPGs and steal some tricks.
          Conversely, MUD/MMORPG developers could learn a thing or two from
          IF/adventure games.
          
          In general, IF/Adventure games gave up "saving the world" a long time ago. A
          lot of players post on IF/Adventure forums "looking for games that don't
          involve killing." The sub-text of that is they are looking for games without
          the cliche "save the world" plot.
• [DESIGN] How big is enough? Ian Hess
• • [DESIGN] How big is enough? Mike Rozak
  • • [DESIGN] How big is enough? Mike Oxford
    • • [DESIGN] How big is enough? Vincent Archer
      • • [DESIGN] How big is enough? szii@sziisoft.com
  • [DESIGN] How big is enough? Siege)
  • [DESIGN] How big is enough? Threshold
  • [DESIGN] How big is enough? David Johansson
  • [DESIGN] How big is enough? Roger Durañona Vargas
• Persisting a MUD state with plain binary serialization Tiago
• • Persisting a MUD state with plain binary serialization Jon Mayo
  • Persisting a MUD state with plain binary serialization Jeffrey Kesselman
  • Persisting a MUD state with plain binary serialization Chris White
  • Persisting a MUD state with plain binary serialization Mike Oxford
  • • Persisting a MUD state with plain binary serialization Tiago
    • • Persisting a MUD state with plain binary serialization Jeffrey Kesselman
      • • Persisting a MUD state with plain binary serialization Mike Oxford
        • • Persisting a MUD state with plain binary serialization Tiago
        • Persisting a MUD state with plain binary serialization Tiago.matias@gmail.com
• [DESIGN] Clojure? Matt Cruikshank
• • [DESIGN] Clojure? Richard Tew
  • • [DESIGN] Clojure? Matt Cruikshank