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

[Valerio Santinelli]

From: "Vincent Archer" <archer at frmug.org>
> According to Valerio Santinelli:

>> 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

> Dungeon Siege suffers a lot from dumbass AI. You have to tweak the
> settings a lot to get a semi-smart party (in single-player mode)
> that doesn't get in positions and situation where you hit pause
> every half a second.

Dungeon Siege isn't the only game suffering from bad AI. Almost all
the newest RPGs have problems with AI. Morrowind is surely one of
them. It seems that developers are usually way too much into engine
programming than the deveolpment of what makes a game fun to play.
I've had to work with a splitted party in order to get through
certain parts of Dungeon Siege. Only because otherwise my party
would go in a suicidal spree against monsters that could have been
avoided. If you want to have fun with DS you've really got to tweak
the numbers. :(

> Plus the situations you get in consist of a lot of triggered traps
> spawns where you get ambushed from behind (and the first thing the
> mob notice is your phat mule).

Yes, this is the usual case where your packmule dies in a matter of
seconds.  But at times my pack-mule goes wandering around in
complete foolness. And what about when it gets attacked and instead
of getting near the party for help it runs away and you loose it
from sight while it's being killed. Doh!

>> 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

> Ok, I chiefly played it "ala Diablo". After swearing a lot about
> the dumbness of the party AI, I ditched my original party, and
> ended up doing the single-player campaign solo. Probably not
> recommended at "hard" level, but definitely doable. I never ever
> kept any loot, except those that could upgrade me past the first
> two chapters (ended the game with 4 million golds, and nothing to
> spend it on).

I started playing it like an RPG and reverted to Diablo-mode, too.
I also finished the game with 3 millions of spare gold that I
couldn't do anything interesting with. All the most powerful
equipment can be looted, and money is only usefull if you want to
hire someone for your party.

--
Valerio Santinelli
HateSeed.com Founder (http://www.hateseed.com)
In Flames Italia Webmaster (http://www.inflames.it)
My Lab (http://tanis.hateseed.com)



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