[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Maddy [SMTP:maddy at fysh.org]
> Sent:	Wednesday, July 01, 1998 11:00 AM
> To:	mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject:	[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun
> 
> On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Koster, Raph wrote:
> > You get the idea. FWIW, in UO we used to have guards who were called
> by
> > players, said call heard by an NPC, were created offscreen, walked
> to
> > the point of the incident, announced their intention to stop the
> fight,
> > and attacked the two players if the fight didn't go away
> immediately.
> > And players ran LOOPS around 'em. So now they teleport to the guy
> and
> > slay 'em in one blow.
> 
> Thats essentially how I'd like NPCs guards to work - most NPCs will be
> created "off screen" as and when they're needed.  It seems that rather
> than
> trying to fix the "bug" that let players have an unfair advantage in
> combat,
> you reversed the imbalance by making the guards superpowerful.
> 
Yep. But we chose that route (we actually got to that state in easy
stages) because protection of the newbie was paramount. And those guards
were the line of defense.

> See - a clear example of me not explaining myself properly.  *8(
> Sure it could be particular players, thats the whole idea - players
> who want
> to be guards should be guards.  Buffy the tailor shouldn't have to
> turn into
> a pyschotic killing machine to protect her shop.  If no-one wants to
> be a
> guard, the game should make up the numbers.
> 
Couldn't agree more. :) Currently, UO does not support recognizing
player settlements in the wilderness as "towns" (and there's a host of
design issues related to adding said support) but we do plan on it. And
once we do, we'll open this can of worms in a big way. There are
currently something like a dozen or so plauer-built cities in UO, some
quite large. If there is interest, I can supply a list of URLs.

> No, the standards are set by the rulers of the city/kingdom/whatever.
> This
> maybe an NPC, or it maybe a player who managed to get elected.
> Indirectly
> the admin/coders have provided a set of rules by which the NPCs
> "think", but
> I'm planning on making NPCs use a subset of these to make them not all
> alike.
> 
Nice--not easy to make work in a social sense, but nice. :) Sort of what
we'd like to do as well.

> >
> > They do if that guard you expected to be there isn't, and a roving
> > warband comes in and ruins your carefully constructed roleplay
> event.
> 
> No.  That just means when you planned the event you didn't take into
> account
> all the possible outcomes. 
> 
I was speaking player-run roleplay events, which are quite common in the
UO player-run cities...

> > I suspect we are speaking at cross-purposes here. I was talking
> about an
> > environment where players are building governments, setting their
> own
> > laws, and there is a considerable amount of freedom. You seem to be
> > assuming a fairly high level of admin/code governance...
> 
> Actually I'm not.  I can't remember how much I've stated about what
> kind of
> game I'm aiming for (mostly cos I've not been "around" much lately)
> but what
> I'm aiming for is a game where players _or NPCs_ are building
> governments,
> setting their own laws etc.  The admin, namely myself and er...well
> it's
> just me, won't need to get in and prod NPCs to do things.  I want to
> create
> a game where NPCs do more than just get killed and actually create a
> fun
> environment that players can join.
> 
Forgive me then, *I* was speaking at cross-purposes not knowing where
you were coming from. it actually sounds like we are taking extremely
similar approaches to the problem.

-Raph