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

[shren]

On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, Vincent Archer wrote:
> According to shren:
 
>> I've had this discussion with about a dozen different people in a
>> dozen different forums.  What *you* think is the central paradigm
>> of NWN is dead.  The shared universe bit, while entirely
>> possible, has never been a) the primary focus of the game, b)
>> secure, or c) remotely practical.
 
> Then, instead of "central paradigm", I should have said "singular
> niche".  The specific point of appeal that makes the game stand
> out different from the others (and ensure a better longevity).

> The chief appeal of the original Vault was a common set of
> restriction on player characters. While each user-written module
> may (or may not) impose his own restriction (the scrutiny of the
> GM spoken about by Travis Casey) on characters, the Vault was the
> ultimate referee on what a character could be in a module.

I'm not sure how far you really go towards a community when you can
make your own world with lots of free loot and levels, and import
them into the vault.  The official vault was total swiss cheese.

> Even without the linking of modules together in an unified
> universe, accepting characters from the Vault meant adhering to a
> community of similar characters.

Very, very similar, since you can't make an item rare.  Or anything
rare, on a vault character.

> Remove the vault, remove the community.

I don't think there would have been much of one, but we'll never
know, will we?

>> One corrupt admin in a closed universe can break the balance of a
>> shared universe - the open universe, wandering between games with
>> vast links, was never secure to begin with.
 
> Not so. The portaling was/could be subject to Vault rules (your
> character would check-in back to Vault). So the best a corrupt
> admin would be able to is to create a world where a character can
> reach without effort the optimum a character is *allowed* to
> be. And no more.

Corrupt admin writes a realm where standing in a small, hidden part
of it gives you one tenth of the xp you need for next level every
thirty minutes.  Describe how to block this - how other servers
detect this.

>> NWN, as a strongly-network enabled game, can be used to attempt
>> to make a MMORPG/MUD like setting.  You can also do lots of other
>> things with it: ... [list of various things]
 
> and all of these things... can also be done with Dungeon
> Siege. Except the bit about 3rd edition AD&D.

Dungeon Siege hasn't done anything for me but put me to sleep.  It's
just plain boring.  I haven't seen thier toolkit yet - I don't know
if it's even out yet - but if you can't do more with the tool kit
than the DS designers did, then it doesn't even qualify as a role
playing game.

Right now, with DS, you can make your own maps, host a server, and
play by yourself.  That puts it in a league with Quake for
flexibility.  We'll see if NWN can pass that.  I think, likely, it
can.

> That's the main problem of NWN. The specific niche that could
> guarantee his uniqueness (and specific attraction) is gone. Apart
> from the ruleset, nothing that NWN offers is really different from
> what DS offers.

We'll see.

> And Dungeon Siege was there first.

For Dungeon Siege to have gotten somewhere, it has to be capable of
travel.  It's a horrible game.  Note that all the hype is gone.  I
see 246 copies of DS for sale on ebay.  Shadows of Amn?  17.  Find a
game that people are trying to get rid of faster than DS, if you
can.

>  (*hears mumbling about DM mode*)

Do you think that the ability to run a game for your friends, like a
tabletop session, is a feature unworthy of note?

>> ...Yes, but this [the global multiverse] application of NWN is
>> probably one of the most difficult and least fruitful
>> possibilities.  Why does it get all the press?  Because a
>> significant minority of persistant world online gamers think the
>> worst of those who run the games and are sure they can do it
>> better, in thier spare time, with the spare CPU cycles on thier
>> home box and the part of thier bandwidth that isn't being
>> devoured by Kaaza.
 
> It was also the unique appeal of NWN. The Vault was the very best
> way to develop a community around of the game. I had seen numerous
> projects, half of which were probably doomed from lack of
> practicality, revolving about "glue" servers. There were cities
> entirely designed to be points where people would meet, trade and
> all that.

> These grandiose dreams are now poofed. Not because their authors
> can't deliver, but because there is no point to them anymore.

It was all wishful thinking anyway.  If you're really determined, it
can probably still be done with some serious hacking.  Mount a
"local server" on a special samba partition which has some extra
code to make the vault think that it's only checking characters in
and out serially.  If a vault sharable across many servers is the
only thing missing, it can be done.  Hell, reverse engineer the
whole thing and run it off of linux/mysql.

  (You.  Yes, you, the unix hacker in the corner with too much free
  time on your hands.  Go do it.  Thanks.  *grin*)

You still won't see many good shared worlds built with it, if any.
The average quality of them will probably go up because of the
barrier to entry, though.

> Community could have made NWN a game that would still be on the
> shelves everywhere in summer 2003.

  It still may be.  Let's see if it delivers what it promises.

> Without it, I'd be surprised to find NWN except on the bargain
> bins come winter.

If I had NWN in my hands, and it is what was promised, then I'd bet
money against this.  I suspect it might not deliver, like DS,
because of the super-long development time.  (Ultima 9, anyone?)

> We peak about evolutionary vs revolutionary in the MMOG.
 
> NWN is, in the end, a tiny bit of the former, and none of the
> latter.
 
> It will probably sit on my HD for some time, but I doubt I'll be
> playing it very often in 6 months.

Everybody enjoyies different things.  I imagine some people are
going to like it a lot.

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

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