[MUD-Dev] Cans of Achievements and Quests

[Rayzam]

From: "Sean Kelly" <sean at hoth.ffwd.cx>
> On Mon, 2 Sep 2002, Rayzam wrote:

>> 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 in my experience quests are redone in a MUD largely in an
> effort to gain experience/levels/items, not because the story is
> so cool.  Single-player and LAN games are closed environments
> where things like experience gain can be calcuated fairly well so
> that by the time the player(s) make it to the next part of the
> story they're generally ready for it.  The combination of
> non-linearity in MUD quests combined with the fact that in
> persistent worlds you don't want players to level as quickly means
> that by necessity the players have to re-do quests multiple times
> in order to advance to the point where they're capable of doing
> the more difficult quests.  This means a lot of busywork and (to
> me) boredom.

One assumption you make is that there isn't enough content to avoid
redoing the same quests multiple times. That may be true, but
doesn't have to be. Hence the push for dynamic quest generators.

One corollary I have to your point that I agree with, that quests
are redone in an effort to gain experience/levels/items, not because
the story is so cool:

A cool quest is limited in replayability if the rewards aren't
deemed worthwhile. I've coded and seen areas/quests where the
players who do it first rave about the quest itself and how much fun
they had. Following up with the rewards not being worth it, so it
won't be done much. Some players do it for the fun or for the status
of being one of the few. But they're the minority.

>> 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.

> Thing is, it's not the number of available quests that's really
> important to me so much as the illusion that those quests have a
> lasting impact on the game world.  If I slay a dragon to save a
> town, then I want the local populace to remember that, maybe thank
> me when I visit the town in the future or tell stories about my
> feat.  The fact that there may be a zillion other dragons out
> there to slay is comforting, but ultimately small potatoes if
> there is no evidence of my deeds if I decide to visit my old
> haunts.  By the same token, if I wander into an inn and kill the
> innkeeper, I expect to be hunted by the local militia and possibly
> imprisoned.  Further, if I return to that inn sometime later I
> expect a gravestone in the backyard, not for the innkeeper to
> greet me at the door and ask for my cloak.  If the inn needs to
> continue to function then perhaps a son, daughter, or stableboy
> takes over the business.

'In a world of heroes, where's the victim?'

Today's newspaper is tomorrow's fishwrapping, aka 'What have you
done for me lately?'. In a realm where there are many hazards,
enough to keep you, an adventurer, always happy being heroic instead
of just one of the crowd, your deeds fade quite quickly as more
recent feats of heroism are performed by others.

'Players having a persistent impact on the world should require an
equal ability of the world to have a persistent impact on the
Player.'

I would argue that if you truly want heroic actions to persist
forever, and that innkeper to not reappear, then you have to have
permadeath in the game too. Killing that dragon is no big deal if
you get to respawn. And you shouldn't be surprised that the dragon
respawns and is back at it's old haunts. As PD is a small proportion
of the gaming population's preference, it's not going to happen
currently, but who knows about the future.

> Thing is, in Real Life the end of one quest creates the
> opportunity for others.  Repelling a monster invasion means that
> the locals can likely expand their farmland and perhaps create
> another settlement in a previously dangerous area.  This might
> result in local political conflicts, trade may develop which could
> fall prey to bandits, the settlement on the frontier may fall to a
> resurgence of the vanquished and resentful monsters, etc.  If I
> quest for a Special Magic Sword, others on the same quest may
> later hear the locals tell of someone who had been searching for
> the sword and went to wherever... they may get to where it's
> supposed to be and find it gone and the cave empty.  Or perhaps I
> decided to claim the dungeon as my own and conjure monsters to
> terrorize the local populace.  I grant that coding such a system
> would likely be an incredible amount of work, but that is the kind
> of persistent world I'd like to see.  

Well, you can redo things you've done before, in Real Life. I'd
argue again that it's related to the number of options
available. You don't have to get 5 bachelor degrees, but you could
if you wanted to.

Once you've done something, it's salience or value to you goes down
relative to things you haven't done, or haven't done recently. So
you do something else. The exact same thing is true in a mud, or at
least in a mud that has enough options. Yes, on Retromud, players do
the same quests over, but they don't do them right after they've
completed them. They cycle through a list of them. Now, if we had an
infinite amount of content, there would always be a quest more
salient than the one completed.

I'm suggesting that needing a quest to be permanent, so only one
person is ever remembered for it, or it having some other impact on
the game world is unnecessary. The goal should be to have enough
content that each player doesn't need to replay anything they don't
want to. This allows for multiple players to enjoy each of the
quests at their own pace.

Doesn't that satisfy everyone in the game?

    Rayzam
    www.travellingbard.com




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