[MUD-Dev] Spawning and quests (was Sony ban)

[Raph Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services
> Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 3:50 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Spawning and quests (was Sony ban)
>
> Regarding spawning, has anyone seriously considered or
> implemented a system
> in which mobs only spawn where heroes are not present?

Oh, yeah, countless Dikus have a crude form of this. Zonewide resets do not
trigger if there are any players in the zone. It leads to camping on zone
boundaries.

> Perhaps even an
> algorithm which scans a region for "natural predators" to be used in
> determining "reproduction" levels.  This might even be a nice eco-system
> experiment with populations sizes based on available food,
> shelter, etc. in
> addition to predators.  Maybe even a "monster food chain."  Could
> be fun. :-)

Been there, done that, failed miserably. :) Wanna try it again someday
though!

> > Static quests for generic items:  Take the monk quest to get
> three putrid
> > rib bones for a magic headband.  Here's the quest:  "Go camp the ruins
> > until you have killed the same putrid skeletons over and over again, for
> > about six hours."  I kid you not, it literally takes that long.
>  Not so bad
> > though, because while you are parked there in the same spot for
> six hours
> > (maybe with a cleric, who also needs to camp there for hours on
> end for one
> > of their guild quests), you can kill three different KINDS of skeletons.
>
> Yes...it seems that many developers confuse easily programmable
> activities
> with fun activities.

Many players like easily programmable activities. Tetris anyone? Heck--the
whole gameplay premise of The Sims could probably be coded into an optimum
solution by many of us on this list within a day or two. The gaming sites
have already posted optimum movement sequences for the simulation.

  Is anyone really doing _epic_ quests?  Why not?  It
> seems to me that Frodo's ring would be good fodder for such a quest.  One
> half of the world could try to prevent the other half from moving
> an object
> from one corner of the map to another...it works for football.  :-)

Your example of epic seems to be team-based capture the flag? Yes, several
muds have tried that. UO's try at it is going in within the next few weeks
as part of UO: Renaissance. I think Meridian 59 had a coupleof versions of
it. Players quickly see it as football and not as an epic quest.

I've written very epic, narratively based quests for Legend. They take a
long time to craft, aren't repeatable, and get reduced to walkthroughs no
matter how compellingly written.

-Raph





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