[MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what's next?

[lynx at lynx.purrsia.com]

On Fri, 28 Jun 2002 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:

> Well thats why I said have sanity checks and throttling. I don't
> think the problem can be prevented, but it can certainly be slowed
> and made less destructive. As far as I know NWN can have filtering
> of players on servers anyway, so you can check if peoples equip is
> viable for your module before letting them on.
 
> One good filter would be just how much xp they've made in how long
> and also cross reference with the server they did it on. Sure they
> can power up whilst watching tv if they create the right dungeon,
> but who cares if I can measure that and stop them playing with me
> or affecting my game?

  1. People's standards of what makes for a 'fair' dungeon crawl
  experience and what are appropriate returns may vary widely.  Who
  sets the standards?  What happens if a module, through whatever
  design, provides 'inflated' rewards but we can only take the
  module's word for it that there was a matching risk?

  2. Some modules are designed for weaker characters, some for
  stronger.  Some people play their characters better than others.
  There just isn't a really good way to automatically scan a
  character to verify the character is suitable for your dungeon.

*I* think the problem would be trivially solved by having the DMs
create precreated characters and forcing the players to use them
instead of their own characters, but I doubt many people would enjoy
that.  They want to play *their* characters being tiny little gods
in the adventure.  They object to other people being tiny little
gods and stealing all the glory/loot/experience.  They probably also
object to the concept of multiple tiny little gods having done the
adventure before and more tiny little gods following them and
demanding they get through so that the other gods can have their
turn.

That being the case, I think they made the appropriate choice in
choosing not to support a central Vault concept, but rather, to
leave policing to the individual DMs.  This divides the playing
field into many smaller campaigns which can be managed according to
those DMs' tastes.

-- Conrad

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