[MUD-Dev] NWN upping the ante? Or is that too much to ask?

[Matt Chatterley]

On Fri, 5 Jul 2002, Azeraab wrote:

> I'm sure I am not the only one who is disappointed with the
> current crop of ORPGs.  Many of them are plagued with bland zones
> and tedious encounters.

To my mind, this has always been an issue (and it probably always
will), linking strongly into the 'stock mud syndrome' which has been
continually debated (continually? I may mean recurringly!) on every
mud-related forum I have ever read. The freedom to create your own
game often leads to large crops of low quality games -- much like
the WWW. Theres a bucket load of pages out there, but only a few
shine for one reason or another -- be it good, solid, useful
content, fancy but useful design or simply through having a
sprinkling of artistic genius throughout.

> Without a doubt most NWN mods not worth it, but there certainly
> are a few that really shine.

NWN is still fairly new, and, ultimately, is Dungeons &
Dragons. It's a CRPG implementation of the 3rd ed (d20) rules, and
as such (at least to my tiny mind) restricted from the outset. I
love the game -- don't get me wrong, and find trying to create
modules for others to play (I hope to release a FR campaign which I
was never able to DM as a series of single player modules in the
near future, while filling a gap between job), very satisfying, as
well as playing in games - however.. I don't know that I would drop
it into the same category of game as a Mud. Certainly, a key element
of Muds for me is the liberal social element, which seems far
clumsier in the NWN interface. It might just be me, of course.

> Is it just a pipe dream of mine that the next generation of ORPGs
> will be built by ex-NWN hackers who are into well designed and
> atmospheric encounters instead of ex-MUDers who want to bury the
> player in text?  Or, as I fear, will the cranial-anal amalgamation
> of the suits force a continuance of the status quo?

I hope that NWN will prove that you *can* have good graphics *and* a
highly immersive, detailed world; that you do not have to use a
purely text medium to convey feelings and emotions (the music in the
single player campaign is fantastic for creating atmosphere, for
instance).

It would be good to see some of the excellent elements from its
design carry over into the work which is being done by some of the
people at the 'bleeding edge' of the MMORPG industry (and by the
hobbyists, too).

--Matt




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