[MUD-Dev] Re: Family, was characters per account

[Daniel James]

Paul Schwanz wrote:

> The permanent death of a character can bring to a
> world heroes who've taken the ultimate risk, 
...
> Enter inheritance.

So, without wishing to make too much more of an eulogy 
for Middle-earth, this type of family inheritance was 
very much what I had in mind as one of the primary
'cures' to issues with permanent death (though there were,
incidentally a number of other checks, balances and so
forth.)

Family does seem to be a grossly neglected construct in
online games - and such an obvious one! Good grief, who
in one's own life provokes such emotional response as
one's family.

It also fits very neatly with most genre settings, and
of course particularly Tolkien's; 'Aragorn, Son of Arathorn,
heir of Isildur.'

The potential plots and player motivations that spring from
family generate marvellously the sort of sandbox gameplay that
we were aiming for. I'll be glad to see someone pull it off.

Daniel

p.s. I actually like the idea (or rather 'Mark Wells' idea,
ahem) of character persistence. I'd really like to build
it into a future game. Heavens, though, not for realism's
sake (I vaguely recall this being his principal motivation),
but rather that it increases attachment to the world and
opens up some interesting gameplay avenues. And yes, you
would need some sophisticated AI/scripting to make it work, 
making it a pretty scary implementation proposition.






_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev