[MUD-Dev] Cans of Achievements and Quests

[Rayzam]

From: "Sean Kelly" <sean at ffwd.cx>
> From: "Rayzam" <rayzam at travellingbard.com>

>> Some versions are good and enjoyable. Others are bad. Others are
>> boring. There are many tales of star-crossed lovers: Romeo and
>> Juliet, Casablanca. There are many tales of boy with unknown
>> heritage discovers himself and saves the world [or Rebel
>> Alliance]. If we just reduce it to the lowest denominator,
>> they're just canned plots. But when done right, they're so much
>> more.

>> So the devil is in the details. It's not that it's a canned quest
>> which resets. It's the quality of the quest that matters. When a
>> player has completed it, do they feel like they achieved
>> something?  I want to argue that you don't need a lasting
>> impact. You need the quality of the quest to be good enough that
>> the player feels a sense of personal accomplishment. If it's just
>> 'take package A to location B', very low to no sense of
>> accomplishment. But if there's a story, and it's well crafted,
>> and I get into the quest, then yes, I've accomplished
>> something. Both follow the same formula.

> In games that don't claim to be set in a pesistent world, then I
> agree.  Perhaps it's the label that causes the problem for me.  In
> single-player RPGs, anything I do has a lasting impact in the game
> world.  In a LAN RPG, everything still has a lasting impact and I
> get to do it with my friends as well.  In MMO RPGs, suddenly
> nothing has a lasting impact but I still get to have my friends
> along.  Considering this, why would I ever choose a MMORPG over a
> LAN-based game?  I might argue "the large community" except that
> the vast majority of people in that community aren't people I have
> any interest in interacting with.  Though I have to admit I'm
> pretty antisocial.  

It's not a fair comparison in one specific sense:
length. Single-player RPG: 60 or so hours. LAN RPG: probably a bit
longer. The faults that are associated with Mud quests are due to
the fact that the quests are shorter, can be redone, and there's no
forced linearity. However, if the LAN RPG was shorter, say it took
20 hours, would you and your friends play it over and over? Would
you play it for 2 weeks to finish it. Then start it over, and play
it again? Well, not as many times as quests are redone in a mud.

But that is the fair comparison. If you wouldn't play the single/LAN
rpg over and over and over again, then its plots suffer the same
fate as the mud quests. Or the converse: if the mud had so much
content that you never had to replay the same quest, then it has the
same star quality of the single-player/LAN games.

    rayzam
    www.travellingbard.com




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