[MUD-Dev] Morphable worlds, Reset based systems revisited

[Ted L. Chen]

Ola Fosheim Grxstad wrote:
> "Ted L. Chen" <tedlchen at yahoo.com> writes:
>> Ola wrote:

>>> They bought all the Quakes. Same game, new engine.

>> They may look similar, but Quake 1, Quake 2, and Quake 3 aren't
>> just rearrangments of code lines or level blocks.  Heck, if it
>> were that simple, wouldn't you think they'd come out at a quicker
>> pace?

> Uh? The pace is determined by hardware improvements. The engine is
> reused in many other games though.

Stop it with the moving targets.  Okay, quake-based games
now.. *sigh* In that case still, I think you might be
underestimating the work required if you want the content level of
games built on the quake engine as something to have every 6 months
in your resets.

> Achievers adapt though. Some even have several character slots and
> switch to whatever profession that seems to have the edge.

Hey, I might have a freak accident with a saw blade tomorrow and
loose a few fingers.  Just because I adapt to it doesn't mean I like
it.  If you want to believe your players are of such high calibre
that they'll always adapt, then all the more power to ya!

> You use "nerf" as a magic word.

Yup, it's a toy brand AND a magic word.  ;) I use it as a
description for a certain mentality.  One that I'm sure you know
just as well as everybody on this list.

>> And you need to clarify new dynamics - I'd hardly call changing
>> the coefficients in the commercial/residential formulas in
>> SimCity an 'improving' factor, let alone new content.

> Bah. Figure it out for yourself.

Hey, I thought you're the one who wants a discussion on the reset
idea.  If by discussion, you meant total agreement, then sorry for
posting at all on this thread.  But I'd like to think about what an
idea's advantages/disadvantages are.  I'm currently criticizing your
argument's supposition that "you can massively improve the world and
relaunch every six months".

I already formulated a niche where a variant of this idea would
work, but your comments above are not at all helpful in expanding
that to MOGs in general.  If that is the intent, so be it.

The answers you've given me so far avoided any concrete specifics
when it comes to supporting the 'improve' portion.  On one hand, you
point to quake variants, which take far more than six months to
develop on top of the base engine.  Then conversely, you give
simcity as an example, which decidedly is on the lower end of
flexibility/content change.

If you're not sure, then that's fine.  No need to get personally
defensive about it.

>> There's also the assumption that a relaunching world would
>> increase my sociability to a level that justifies all of this.

> No, there is the assumption that a relaunching world would be more
> interesting to newbies, and generally new fun. Clearly, in current
> MOGs people keep playing despite the game itself being boring as
> hell.

Okay, so if this is for the newbies, then why get worked up about my
earlier supposition that people don't like change or that this?  If
newbies are the target, there's no change there as they wouldn't
have been exposed to your game earlier now would it.

TLC


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