[MUD-Dev] Quests

[Erik Jarvi]

On Sat, Apr 15, 2000 at 01:21:18PM -0500, Raph Koster wrote:
> 
> So in the example given, if there's an ongoing battle for "who has the One
> Ring" and the mud is centered around it, then players will see it as a game
> of football. If perhaps the event ran ONCE, and the result was that Sauron
> actually conquered the entire world and next time something else entirely
> needed to be done, then maybe players would give it significance.
> 
> I've always considered the events run on Achaea to be a model for how it
> should be done, but I don't know how much time investment is required.
> Asheron's Call is doing something similar, and they tell me that it IS a
> huge amount of effort to carry off one large-scale, non-repeating,
> consequential event every month.

Maybe I missed the point, I only had 2 cups of coffee :), but with large scale one
off quests, I think that the lower to mid level players are usually "left behind".
Yes it depends on how the quest is designed, but we get into the multiplayer problem
again. I like quests that every can/has to do to advance.  On Shattered World, our
quests get pretty difficult, and not just combat wise. Also getting help on the
hardest quests is like pulling teeth, we, the admins, don't have any rules about
not helping or telling another player how to do a quest.  Usually, an older player
will tell or tag along a newbie how to do one or 2 of the easier quests to get them 
started.  I just thought of this... our quests are alot like some of the Ultima
series "quests", find X, he'll tell what to do, go all over the world looking for 
item or person Y, kill Z, figure out such and such puzzle, etc. 

Don't get me wrong, I think that the large one off quests are esential for the high
level characters.  We have invasions, which I like to do and watch all the players 
die. :) I just ttry not to do them too often, because when I played on RoD, I always
thought the here is a super huge mob kill it, got boring, and frustrating after
getting in one hit then dieing. (But that was years ago, and I'm not sure how things
work over there now.) I'm rambling now...

Erik

--
All music aspires to the condition of muzak.



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