[MUD-Dev] Winnable MMO

[shren]

On Mon, 31 Mar 2003, apollyon wrote:

> So, what if you designed an MMO that was made to be winnable?
> Most games are winnable.  No one plans to play a single game of
> Monopoly for the next 5 years, but when the game is over they are
> more than willing to play another game to see if they can win this
> time.  What if you designed a game that was made to be winnable
> over the course of maybe 1 to 6 months and when one side won the
> game would be played again?  The timeframe would not be so long
> that people would feel as if they had made too great an investment
> to think about starting over again, but long enough that players
> could feel as if they had striven against a worthy opponent and
> would be anxious to try again.

There's been a design in my head for something like this for a
while.  You'd have a 'micro-MMORPG' server that could be run off of
a hefty home machine with DSL.  This game would be designed for
about 16-32 people to play and win over a period of about a year.
Clever people could do away with the server by making some kind of
distributed system between the players of the games.  Make that very
clever people.

Perhaps the plot would be 'develop island with silver mine so your
home country can win a war with the income off of it'.  You'd have a
small island with nothing but nature and monsters.  You'd have to
clear areas of monsters, build power to take on monster towns,
establish communities, chart ocean lanes, task peasants, build up
resources (like adventuring gear), import craftsmen, and so forth.
When the island is stable (clean of evil) and pumping out galleons
full of silver, you win - your home country, now holding an economic
advantage, crushes the infidels or invaders or evil emperor or
demons or whatever.


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