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

[Coyote]

On Monday, October 21, 2002, Shren wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Oct 2002, Kent Peterson wrote:

>> Oh.  Hm.  But players are tremendously, tremendously efficient at
>> solving and exploiting new areas within days of their going
>> online - usually it's more a matter of hours, not days.  How do
>> you keep it being an "explorer" game, so that the majority of
>> players can still find and explore truly NEW areas, while still
>> having the explorable areas be interesting and WORTH exploring
>> (as opposed to vast tracts of randomly generated uninteresting
>> wilderness)?
 
> A momentary thought - I wonder if you can prevent the rate of mass
> publication of game secrets by not giving anything a name.  Don't
> name places, don't name items, don't give out coordinates to
> players.  Common names for things are critical for communication.

The only problem that I see with this is that players have an almost
uncanny ability to come up with their own 'special' names for things
even if you DO put a label on things. Helmets of Power quickly
become HoP's, Wraith Reavers become Reavers, and that special whip
that does great shocking damage becomes a lightning whip(or a
LW). And, usually, if someone doesn't know what the term for
something is, the other players quickly tell them (Oh, LW? Best whip
in the game!)

How could you stop, or inhibit even, this type of thing without the
players feeling like you're trying to control them?

>>   "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.

I would have to agree with this. You might be able to make good
content on a daily basis, but the question is, is it going to be
GOOD content. Quickly shoveling pieces in can throw the balance out
of things because a player sees how to exploit it, and usually does
before you have a chance to fix it.

Its possible to do, I'ld wager, but the end results remain yet to be
seen. It'll be interesting to see how this plan plays out.

- Coyote

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