[MUD-Dev] Toward a Craftier Dragon

[John Hopson]

Here's an idea for improving monsters that I don't think I'll ever
actually use, but it was a cute thought.

As each player enters a hunting zone, an appropriate wandering
monster is spawned in a mirror image zone elsewhere in the
game. Bigger monster depending on level, first level characters
spawn gremlins, max level characters spawn dragons.  The monster
mirrors the player's movements, and because this is happening from
the other side as well, as players come to attack monsters, their
mirror-monsters on the other side move to attack other characters.
As the player fights, the mirror-monster fights, conveying
intelligence and adding PvP fun to hunting.

Of course, this means every time a monster dies, a player dies.
This could be offset by making the monsters weaker than the
corresponding players and when the monster dies a new mirror spawns
a random time later.

The monsters would need to be mute and basically anonymous, to
prevent persecution/favoritism.


Some pluses:

  It scales with the number of characters online.  If there are only
  a few players, there are only a few monsters.  As the playerbase
  grows, so does the monster population.

  People can play monsters and have a personal incentive to play
  monsters without having a separate class of monster players.

  There's no extra effort required for the players.  They're just
  doing the normal "kill monsters for XP" that we all know and love.

  If players group up, great.  There will be wandering hordes of
  monsters, packs of wolves or orcs.  The prey monster/character can
  always run.

  This doesn't exclude normal wandering monsters, just to keep
  players guessing.


John

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