[MUD-Dev] Wilderness

[John Buehler]

Jeff Freeman writes:
> Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:

>> Going back to your original desire to have vasts tracks of
>> wilderness, perhaps you could create the world-perception you
>> describe by shaping the transport systems of the world around it.

> Not so much to have vast tracks of wilderness.  What I mean by
> "wilderness" is "the stuff that connects points of interest".  I
> don't like long boring walks through featureless terrain either.

I think that choosing to adopt the attitude that wilderness is the
stuff between points of interest is a major mistake.  You've
immediately relegated wilderness to something that is not of
interest.  As a result, it only exists to separate points of
interest.  From an entertainment standpoint, that makes no sense.
If you're going to put it into the game world, it has to be
inherently entertaining.  If it's not entertaining, don't put it in.
EverQuest understood this to an extent, but then still put in the
Plains of Karana, which were, in a word, BORING.

If the wilderness really is just filler, then you're going to have
to put in teleportation, fast travel, offline travel or some such
thing that negates the very existence of the wilderness.  If you put
something out in the middle of nowhere and require players to reach
it via conventional travel, it will only bore them to tears because
you're forcing them to engage in something that you quite
consciously accept as being unentertaining.

The entertainment of the wilderness is going to be derived from
whatever it is that tree huggers like.  They like the views, they
like the wildlife, the foraging, the diving off cliffs into lakes,
the fishing, and so on.

The wilderness must be entertaining.  If it's not, don't put it into
the game.

JB

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