[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

> From: Brian Hook [mailto:bwh at wksoftware.com]
 
> At 10:25 AM 6/19/01 +0100, Dan wrote:
 
>> So remember 99% of the world is completely shared in AO.
 
> Geographically, sure.  Temporally, no (assuming people are mostly
> playing in combat).  PSO has the same problem -- you socialize in
> the lobbies, but basically the chance of a random encounter with
> another sentient human are zero once you're in the thick of
> things.  And about half my interesting interactions in EQ were in
> combat areas like MUDs.  Hell, I'd say the vast majority occurred
> during combat, e.g. someone saving me or me saving them or us
> fighting over a spawn =)

Definitely - its most certainly a two edged sword. In some ways
though, it strikes me as closer to the VI vision (my interpretation
at least) of how EQ should be played. Whereby you enter a dungeon
and work through it :) Having said all this, the outdoor camps in AO
aren't too disimilar to the outdoor camps in EQ.

I had heard that AO had some static dungeons, but its a big world,
and I've not explored that much yet. Nor am I high enough level to
go some places. I came across what looked like an interesting
security compound in the middle of nowhere the other day. It had
some high level guards around it though so I kept away.

As an aside, I'm not wildly impressed by the dynamic dungeon
design. They are build out of standard components and it all looks
very samey. I feel they may need to work on them for a while
yet. Even getting a mission to go on is a pain, you end up sitting
at the mission generator trying to get it to generate a mission with
a reward you want. Having said that, the armor and equip you win in
missions is only average, so I've started accepting ones where I
think the zone in is both close and working. Its not too hard to do
a couple and then buy some good equipment with the cash one makes in
the mission.

Being a relative mud newbie (I jumped in on the UO,EQ,AC train), one
thing that strikes me is the relative commoness of equipment. Its
genuinely not that hard to piece together ok gear. From what I've
seen I quite like this dynamic as it means camping isn't necessary
(nor possible really given the game :). Better gear is always
purchaseable too, so saving up for decentish kit is always viable.

Ending on a plus note, the scenery graphics are definitely nice.

Dan

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev