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

[Arnau Rosselló Castelló <arocas@alumni.uv]

Clay wrote:
> Arnau Rosselló Castelló wrote:

>> Well, you could, instead of abruptly replacing the rules, and
>> pissing a large part of the user base, make a system where the
>> rules morph slowly over time, making some abilities or objects
>> more or less efective. In one cycle the effects of cutting blades
>> could be stronger, giving an edge to warriors, for maybe one
>> month, then, after the peak it would decline again; Players would
>> go back to their hammer of stunning(or whatever). One month the
>> mage's ligthning bolts could make 6 bolts of 4-5 damage, next
>> month it could be 15 bolts of damage 1. That way new tactics
>> would emerge when the particular state of the rules favours them,
>> and others would be abandoned(until they are favored again). The
>> game would be more dinamic, and new players would find a world
>> that's still "new", in the sense that everybody is learning new
>> tactics all the time, not aplying the tried and true formula the
>> faster they can.

> That sounds like it would be so extraordinarily frustrating.
> Everything you learn would need to be perpetually unlearned, every
> achievement would soon have the rug pulled out from under it, and
> you persist in a state of confusion and uncertainty.  Sounds
> superficially more interesting, as an earthquake sounds like it
> would make hiking more interesting, but when the ground keeps
> shifting it's hard to maintain an interest in where you're going:
> when you reach the top of the mountain you now discover it's a
> valley, so just as well to stand still ... and then why am I here
> at all?

The key here is "slowly". If you do it too fast, it happens as you
say, permanent confusion and alienation of the players; But if you
do it slowly enough, when someone finds something particularly
useful, he will be able to profit from it for some time, before it
starts to be less useful. This being all theory, i can't tell how
much time in average would be enough, maybe 1 month, maybe 3. You
still would climb the mountain, because you could "profit" from the
panoramic for some time after you reached the top, AND you would
probably be the first to climb it, which is always very compelling
for a lot of people.

> If "dynamic" simply means random, purposeless change, then it only
> takes away from the game experience.  That sort of dynamism is
> just dull.

The changes could be random(not necessarily), but should be
predictable by the players, with a bit of effort, up to some
distance in the future. This way players could see if practicing on
something is worth it, or start training some poor ability they know
will be on the rise soon.

> But if these changes had some sort of trajectory, something which
> might be attached to (and explained by) global events (Asheron's
> Call had some interesting effects where certain magics behaved
> differently as the evil lord reawakened and a blight descended on
> the world) ... well, that could be something.  But still, change
> needs an anchor, something discernible grounding, or else it's
> just frustration.

Well of course those changes should have some anchor in reality. It
can be the evil overlor whatever increasing the power of necromantic
spells, or it may be that under some(periodic) planet
configuration(substitute that for appropiate astrology term) the
effects of blades dipped in spider venom are stronger, but it should
always have some justification, depending on the gameworld.

Thinking on it the idea is the same as with patents, only
reversed. With no patents, there is no push for innovation, as you
can't benefit from it. Unlimited patents encourage the old boys with
all the patents to sit on them and profit, making it very dificult
for the newbie. You need to find a good compromise between making
investigation worthwhile and giving newbies a fair chance; In a
static online world, knowledge is forever, if you introduce gradual
shift in it, knowledge "rots", and new knowledge arises continually,
giving newbies and oldbies equal chance to be the first to discover
it, but you don't want it rotting too fast or it would be worthless.


Arnau Rosselló Castelló
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