[MUD-Dev] Wilderness

[Adam Martin]

----- Original Message -----
From: <Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com>
> From: Adam Martin [mailto:ya_hoo_com at yahoo.com]
>> From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>

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

>> ...unless it's boredom has a purpose? E.g. use the wilderness as
>> just another obstacle, in fact a particularly effective one, to
>> make getting at a certain quest/reward/artifact more difficult.

>> If, say, you wanted to limit PK'ing, whilst still making it
>> possible, require that in order to land the killing blow against
>> another character, you have to have made a trip to the Sacred
>> Temple in the middle of the desert. After a few days, or after
>> killing someone, whichever is sooner, the blessing wears off and
>> you are again powerless to kill other characters, until you make
>> the long, dull trip across the desert and back.

> Thats plain hideous! Personally I play games for escapist
> entertainment, not drudgery. Anyway, you just know that people
> will macro/hit autorun/etc. to get around it.

> Its a similar approach to Everquest and its spawn camping
> methodolgy. The desire to limit item flow into the game from
> static spawns makes the game less fun for everyone. People feel
> they need to camp those jboots to enjoy the game, so they do it
> and you end up forcing the player to sit somewhere for hours on
> end waiting for a spawn. Just as they would with a pkill
> ability. If the item/ability is there and desireable, people will
> feel they have to do it and you are going to upset them in the
> process. There has to be a better way of dealing with each problem
> than enforced torture. If EQ had a Diablo 2 item system where both
> item and who drops them were semi random I think it would be a
> better game.

I think you've misinterpreted what I was saying as "This is a way to
solve problems of overkill " (pardon the pun) "when allowing mass
PVP by grief / ultra-violent players". What I was actually trying to
point out is that a dull wilderness is not a Bad Thing just because
its dull - you can look beyond that and find ways to make the
inherent dullness part of a bigger picture that is actually in
itself enjoyable. Or, you can turn the dullness to your advantage -
the example I gave was intended merely to demonstrate that there are
situations in which a dull activity was actually desirable from a
game-design point of view.

Adam M
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