[MUD-Dev] Locations vs Social Spaces (was: I Want to Forge Swords)

[Alex Kay]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Hook" <bwh at wksoftware.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 6:09 AM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Locations vs Social Spaces (was: I Want to Forge
Swords)

> At 02:21 PM 5/13/01 +0800, Alex wrote:

>> Now imagine if this had been the case originally and every city in
>> the old world had as rich an environment surrounding it. I think
>> then having a siginificant travel time between cities would be much
>> less of a burden and more of a feature since it wouldn't be seen as
>> a requirement.

> Other than you can't play with your friends early on.  This was
> probably one of my most significant complaints with EQ very early on
> (before taxi-cab teleportals were all the vogue).  By choosing what
> class/race you wanted to be, you were then forced into a
> geographical situation where you would not be able to adventure with
> your friends who were similarly low-level.

> Unfortunately, you can't have it both ways: sometimes a player has a
> very legitimate reason to travel from one place to another that has
> nothing to do with power or adventuring (e.g. to find a friend that
> purchased the game with you at EB and now you two want to figure it
> out together).  Other times the reason you want to travel is because
> you have a new low-level character you want twinked.

> And there's no way for a coder to really understand "intent" of a
> user's actions.  You can infer as much as you can, but in the end
> you're not going write a function that is psychic.

I really don't see this as an issue. A simple thing to do would be to
have one or more starting locations that allow for a large number of
races. For example, in EQ, Freeport would easily cater for almost all
races as a common starting location for those that want to play
different races/classes together from the get go.

But then I'm more of the solo adventuring sort. My first travels from
Halas to Qeynos, then Qeynos to Highhold Keep are more memorable to me
than any mob I've killed or battle I've been in. Unfortunately once
you realise the zones are all just boxes it trivialises the experience
and I've not been able to recapture that original feeling or
atmosphere in any of the expansions.

Alex


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