[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.

[Adam Wiggins]

[Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad:]
> Hey, I like adventure games with freedom. Without those annoying
> roadblocks (Myst had it's share).  I would like an adventure game
> without freedom if I don't have to look for those stupid keys.  My
> personal reference for a game with a story and with freedom is
> Infocom's Deadline.

Haven't played that particular one, but that does bring up another
area of games I had neglected to touch upon - the pre-graphics Infocom
games.  These games are very much what you say - you *are* the character,
sometimes even typing in your own name.  These games I think do the
best that you can with this sort of a concept - there's still not a
lot of personal involvement with the story for the player-character,
but there are plenty of NPCs doing their thing.  I guess it was the
advent of the Sierra-style 'quest' games that killed this off, not
just because of their graphics but because they featured distinct
characters with personalities.  Although I find the later interesting,
I can agree with you that an adventure game in the style of the
Infocom games where your character =3D=3D you can be executed without
making it a completly vapid experience of flipping levers.  Of course,
no one seems terribly interested in doing this...

> I was thinking about the state of the art (games) today, I couldn't
> really find many examples of new concepts that haven't been used in a
> classic CBM64 game.  On the other hand I can think of a couple of
> "C64" concepts that isn't visible in the current games I know of.

Yup.  My big complaint is that all the technology availible to us
goes into sparkle, and not into making bigger, more interesting, and
more complex gameworlds.  There are a few genres that have been
able to take advantage of the new technology - action mainly (something
like Quake was unimaginable even ten years ago), but also flight
sims (more processing power means more realistic flight models) and
wargames (better AI, less wait time on the turns).  Adventure games
have pretty much gone downhill, IMO, for a long time - which is why
I rarely play them anymore.  Real RPGs are pretty much non-existant
except for Ultima Online, and I daresay that except for a few=20
multiplayer RPGs none even come close to the complexity and richness
of gameworld of say, Ultima IV or Wizardry VI.