[MUD-Dev] Myst Online article at ferrago.co.uk

[Rayzam]

From: "shren" <shren at io.com>
> On Mon, 21 Oct 2002, Kent Peterson wrote:

>> http://www.ferrago.co.uk/story/642

>>   "Cyan's plan of not only weekly but almost daily additions to
>>   the game world seem very ambitious."

>> Uh, yeah, right.

> Is that understatement of the century, or what?  The only way I
> can think of to do it is to make a zone all at once that comes in
> in 30 different pieces.  Like, one piece of work that's patched in
> slowly.

Well, not necessarily. While it depends overall on the quality of
the additions, it also depends on the tools. As toolsets for area
creation become better, then throughput increases, and time to
completion decreases.  I'm also taking into account that Myst didn't
have any hack/slash, so there's a diminished emphasis on balancing
NPCs, making items, and other related items.

Take newspapers. They come with new articles daily. Many people read
them. And the content is old for most of the subscribers within a
day, probably asymptoting within a week. If you view area content as
similar to article creation, and the toolset is up to it, it
wouldn't be hard to have a staff spend a week creating content for
the following week. The only real limitations would be in the
creativity of the builder and, possibly more serious, the artwork to
support it. Using standard object sets reduces the artwork/graphics
requirement, but limits the feel of 'newness'.

Do I think they can do it? That's a different question :) In
general, it is possible, but I reserve judgement on whether anyone
can do it at this point. If its just environments to play in, sure,
why not add a new one a week.

    rayzam
    www.travellingbard.com



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