[MUD-Dev] Permadeath or Not?

[Madrona Tree]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 10:40 PM
Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Permadeath or Not?


> This is one reason that I favor the small power range for characters.
> It means that the investment in all dungeons is roughly available to
> all player characters.  This, as opposed to EverQuest, where dungeons
> are rated for various levels of player characters.  Until you make the
> 20s, don't go near Castle Mistmoore.  Verant does a pretty good job,
> however, of ramping the difficulty of areas and dungeons so that the
> farther in you go, the more difficult the areas become.

I think some of their design philosophies and their goals are in
conflict with each other -- this being one major case in point.

Brad stated elsewhere in this thread that they want people to "go
through" a dungeon.  Problem being that you can't, really... because
when the mobs at the beginning are blue/white to you, the mobs in the
middle are Red... and conversely, when the mobs at the end are the
"right" level for you to fight, the mobs at the beginning are so low
that they don't attack you.  So what happens is people find a spot
that is right for them, and sit there and wait for mobs to spawn.

What might help this problem is to allow mobs to "group up" the way
players do -- so that if a group was fighting two level 12 mobs at the
same time, it would be as if the group was fighting one level 18 mob
-- since two mobs at once are harder than one at a time.  They
implemented this in Sierra's Realm (which has similar gameplay), and
it seemed to work fairly well.


> I'm lucky.  I'm in an outstanding guild that takes care of its own.
> No bickering, no infighting, just help when you need it.  My only
> problem was having taken an 8 month break put me many levels behind
> the rest of the guild.  They're in their 50s and I'm at 45.

Which is ~10%, which is hardly a difference.  Imagine if a 90 skill
archer could not group with an 80 skill archer in UO and have it be
profitable...  or imagine if a level 15 could not group with a level
13 in EQ.  It's tough when you make friends, and then can't play with
them two weeks later because your playschedules aren't exactly alike.


Madrona Tree.
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