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

[Sean Kelly]

From: "Valerio Santinelli" <tanis at mediacom.it>

> NWN can be massive.

...

> The only problem about making it a fully persistant game is that
> variables tied to characters, that are used to track quests
> completion and similar thing, are not saved with the characters
> themselves. I guess Bioware is going to release a patch fo this
> behaviour.

Actually, so far as I know, it is possible to create invisible
inventory items and to store variables on these.  At the very least,
you could give players an actual inventory item and do the same.  So
far as I know, variables stored on items persists across servers (it
would have to, since that's how charges for wands are handled, etc).

> Now, if you've seen the toolset released by Bioware, you can agree
> with me that creating a world with that tool is really easy. I am
> building a persistant world for NWN myself and I can make new
> areas in a matter of minutes. Adding content is easy and can be
> done in whatever fashion you like. I even got to spend 20 or 30
> minutes creating a single item and tweaking all its values to my
> liking. But you can also drop standard items into your world with
> a single click and build such content in 5 minutes. It all depends
> to you, the server builder. And I see great power in that toolset.

Yup.  Very easy to use.  Beats the heck out of the editors used for
quake, unreal, or thief.

> You also get NWScript, which is a scripting language with syntax
> similar to C. And you can do virtually everyhing with it.

...except add new functionality via shared libraries or the like.
While this would be a perfect way to introduce instability,
malicious code, etc.  into game servers, it would also allow us more
resourceful types to do some truly incredible stuff.  That said,
NWScript is quite nice.  Combined with local variables, even complex
datatypes are possible.

There is, however, a huge lack of documentation for the scripting
language and included API (ie. none, unless you count the modules
that ship with the game).  Fortunately, the rabid fan base has
constructed some decent basic docs with the help of a few of the
designers.  Still, it would be nice if this sort of thing were
available from BioWare directly.

> I've had a look at the original scripts from Bioware. You can see
> that all the code related to how combat works, how XP are
> assigned, how spells affect other creatures, and more, are all
> done with NWScript. This means that you can completely rewrite the
> rules of your game.

Within reason.  Adding features that require a modification of the
basic rules would be difficult to impossible (new races or classes
that are not variations on existing ones).  But things like
vampirism should be quite doable.

> NWN holds great power. I agree it's the next step after UO, but
> not only UO. It's the next step of what UO emulators have done
> till now. Bring server-building capabilities to the masses.

It's one of the only ways I see that could generate enough content
to satisfy the gaming community.  And the content is as diverse as
the community itself.


Sean

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