[MUD-Dev] It's About Time Department (Mule Characters)

[Rudy Fink]

On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, Valerio Santinelli wrote:

> The pack-mule solution has not been judged that great by players
> of Dungeon Siege. The mule is actually a real dumb character (as
> it should be) and whatever you drop on the mule is usually not
> worth to bring around. Probably the real problem isn't the mule
> itself but the way your characters can find items and powerful
> weapons and armours along the quests. It's pretty easy to find
> magical weapons and whatever you carry with the mule drops value
> very fast and becomes crap in no time. And you can use spells to
> turn items into gold and you lose only a little percentage of the
> items value. All the players I speaked with have dropped their
> mule as soon as they realized that it was unnecessary and that
> another fighter in the party does make a difference, while the
> mule gets killed fairly easily and it isn't a good warrior :) The
> pack-mule would have been a good resource if Dungeon Siege was
> balanced differently. I expect people to code scripts for
> Neverwinter Nights in order to recreate the pack-mule in that
> game.

I thought that the mule was a well done feature.

The mule had:

  - good positioning.  It kept up and stayed out of combat quite
  well.

  - Nice detail with the model about having increasing box graphics
  on it based on how well it was loaded down.

  - Amusing fact that the mule could "fight back" with kicks.  I had
  fun putting healers on the mule and letting it "tank."

  - It provided an inexpensive way to collect and store gear early
  in the game.  I found it useful to store gear to equip new party
  members.

I agree that the mule was largely unecessary to gaming through DS,
but I think it added a worthwile element.  Regardless of whether
they kept or dropped the mule, most folks I have talked to about it
enjoyed its presense.

If anything, the mule helped distract me from the story element of
the game.

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