[MUD-Dev] UO rants

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Vincent Archer <archer at nevrax.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Saturday, August 26, 2000 3:34 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] UO rants


>It sounds like what Dark Age of Camelot (another soon-to-be contender
>in the MMOG arena) is trying to do. 3 teams, and as an objective for
>conflict (as opposed to "let's kill some ennemies"), you have "Relics"
>who give your realm some benefits.
>
    I think that's my cue.  Yes, that's essentially the size of it.  Another
thing is that we're actually *discouraging* non-combat interaction between
Realms, they won't be able to talk to each other in-game and a particular
account will have to have all characters on a given server in the same realm
(but could be in a different realm on another server).  We've got a big
gameworld to work with, so we're splitting it into three chunks, and each of
those is further divided into 2 regions, a "Home" region and a "Frontier"
region, each about the scaled size of pre-Kunark EQ.  In between is a
bottleneck zone with heavy NPC defenses.  There are also outpost seaports
from each of the enemy Realms on the fringes of your Frontier.

    Home regions are intended to be primarily safe, Frontier regions are
contested territory.  The further you push into your realm's Frontier, the
more risk of PvP, but the more reward from PvE gameplay.  The highest PvE
reward ratio will come from attacking NPC outposts in *enemy* Frontier
regions.  We're seriously considering allowing these outposts to change
hands, fulfill some set of victory conditions on a particular outpost and it
will start spawning Guards from your own Realm.

    The player can then select what "temperature" of PvP risk he's willing
to be vulnerable to, from completely safe to completely exposed.  The more
risk he's willing to take on, the higher the rewards.  And "Relics" provide
incentives for the entire Realm to organize, to take and defend them.  The
theory is that it's not the *risk* that makes players avoid PvP, but the
lack of control over the *level* of risk.  Even players who enjoy PvP
sometimes like to say "I don't feel like fighting other players today".  It
should be possible (but slower) to level all the way up to max level without
entering the frontier region.

--Dave Rickey
  World Builder, Economic Designer
  Mythic Entertainment




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