[MUD-Dev] Re: Forced story line...

[Damion Schubert]

-----Original Message-----
From: Marc Hernandez <marc at jb.com>

>On Sun, 20 Sep 1998, quzah [sotfhome] wrote:


>}At any rate, one thing I found that really pisses me off,
>}and that I hate, is their "forced" little scenarios: They


> The thing that spawns the 'forced' scenerios is the need for a
>story.  A problem is that stories are inherently linear processes, and a
>good 2d equivelent hasnt yet been found.  Games on the other hand branch
>at huge rates (thus our inability to search the tree of go games even
>though the tree is only 81 levels deep on a 9x9 board).  
> Another issue is the complexity of building realistic behavioral
>NPCs.  Current research does interesting stuff mostly regarding movement
>behaviors (Karl Simms,Rodney Brooks) and simple situations.  Yet with
>scripted behaviors you can get as much life out of the NPCs as any cartoon
>or story based media.  


Online games have a few elements which further
muddle up 'storyline' scenarios.  The first is the sheer
number of things you can do to screw up the story. 
Unreal's a much simpler problem, because your choices
are pretty binary: kill a target (the Skaarj/ bad guys) or not
kill them (the Nali/good guys).  In a MUD, your choices 
can approach infinite, if your coders are ambitious enough.

Example: the king tells you to go kill the dark wizard, and
return his crown.  Instead, you either go to the wizard, steal
the crown, and return to the king without killing the wizard.
Or charm the wizard and lead him back to the king.  Or 
use magic to make a counterfeit crown and give it to the 
king.  It's worth noting that all three examples would make 
much better fantasy reading than the original quest, and
ideally, the king would offer a fitting response for each.  But
attempting to code all possible solutions will ultimately
fail - players will always find new solutions that 'should' 
work.  The worst culprit is when you add new spells or
items to the game, which offer ramifications you hadn't
previously anticipated.

The second problem with story quests in MUDs is that 
of other players.  Example:  the king tells you to go kill
the dark wizard.  But Johan kills him first (without, I note,
getting all of the quest information from the king).  Or,
even more annoying and common in many muds I played,
you do the quest, and go back to the king to find that some
yahoo has charmed him and is using him to tank the yeti.

Ultimately, MUDs are exciting because they offer CRPGs
something that's lacking - roleplaying.  Roleplaying, at it's
finest, is nothing more than communal storytime. However, 
the problem with this is that (a) there is only so far the 
computer can go to support/enforce roleplaying - 
players, largely, have to take it upon themselves, and
(b) it's difficult to convince players that, ultimately, this 
is their responsibility.  

--damion