[MUD-Dev] Re: Point of View

[listsub at wickedgrey.com]

Shane P. Lee <tacodog21 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- justice at softhome.net wrote:

>> Not all quests have to be an epic adventure for the sake of the
>> game universe in order to be enjoyable.

> This brings to mind the old(?) D&D board game. Most of the quests
> the players could choose from were "Frodo" type quests. Here you
> risk burning players out. I mean, how many times can you save the
> world before it gets boring? Once a month or so, a "Frodo" type
> quest might be in order, if it is nicely planned and executed.
> This brings to mind the North American Eskimos, who have ten words
> for "snow", while the West Greenlandic dialect has 49. In English,
> we have one. Quests are much the same, we are using one word for
> something that can have many meanings and depths.  Anyone know of
> a place where I can enrich my MMORPG vocabulary to include more
> than one word for "quest"?

A quick brush with OT before getting back to the point: snow, slush,
sleet, freezing rain, flurries, snowfall, blizzard, snowdrift,
snowbank, pack ice, glacier, iceberg.  While not necessarily
accurate in the specific case, these are roughly analogous to the
fabled "# Inuit words for snow."

I think part of the problem with MMOG "quests" is that most feel
they must fit into the classical quest mold.  Find the Mystical
Widget of Foo.  Kill the Great Beast of Bar.  Rescue Some Person
from the clutches of Someone Else.  From Ulysses to Beowulf to
Arthur to Baggins to Al'Thor, we have this notion of a well-defined,
epic goal that must be the sole focus of the person in question.

I say scrap that.  Part of the problem with using the literature
model of quests is that having only one outcome is not only
acceptable, it is _required_ by the medium (unless you count
choose-your-own-adventures, but IMHO that breaks the "literature"
qualification ;).

Give players a world that presents situations and knobs to twiddle.
If there are a fair number of PCs in a remote mountain mining
village, attack the village.  Don't have someone run and shout "The
goblins are coming!  The goblins are coming!  You, as a Hero, must
save us!"  Just do it and let the PCs do whatever they want.  If
they run, they run.  When they hear later the fate of the village,
they will either mourn the town, be glad they didn't get caught in
the trap, wish they had stayed and helped, think it didn't matter
because the town is fine, whatever.  If they stay they either become
a hero, a slave or a corpse.  If the humans lose, then metal prices
nearby go up from loss of the mine.

It doesn't even have to be simulated - just script that if the
humans control the town, prices for metal goods are normal.  If the
lose the town, prices go up by X%.  Conversely, if you have goblin
players, give them the same incentive.  Or make it different -
perhaps the goblins don't care about the mine's ore, but instead use
it as housing.  You don't even have to time the attacks - just
provide players a way to initiate a hostile takeover and let them do
the work.

It's not a quest in the typical sense, but it is reusable in a
non-fiction breaking way, it gives players meaningful choices with
consequences, and allows them to influence the outcome.  The only
real difficulty is presenting the rebuilding phase well (general
balance issues could also exist, but... ;).  It certainly doesn't
require a lot of scripting - the only catch would be the hooks into
the local economy.  It also wouldn't be hard to scale or extend
(make it five mines, or the spring that feeds the river the local
clergy uses to brew healing potions, etc.).

That's the kind of game I want to play(make).

Ramblin'
Eli

--
Give a man some mud, and he plays for a day.
Teach a man to mud, and he plays for a lifetime.





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