[MUD-Dev] [DGN]: Ludicrous speed.

[Yaka St.Aise]

At 17:26 -0700 03/09/11, Michael Chui wrote:

> Definitely. See? It's not so ludicrous after all.

In absolute it is not. In fact, I really am not sure it is that much
likely to happen (hence the tongue in cheek title of the thread).
Current MMOGs as a whole show a lot of history stuttering in the
form of repeated mistakes, and it is the result of both an hubris to
invent everything and not spending enough time and attention
learning from the past (granted a short one, but still) of our
trade.

Will we see the team in charge of a big-money MMORPG (big enough to
make a blip on a less-than-hardcore radar) take a step back and say:
"OK, we will spend 1-2 years in pre-prod and high-con design, maybe
hack a text-mode working prototype to feel the water, then when we
are ready, we'll code a really different, better game than usual..."
?

Will we see a big-name company (because that's what it takes to blip
on the aforementioned radar) envision the adaptation of a text mode
MMORPG into a graphical game in any other way than a cheap hack
("Must be easy then kid, just slap on pictures, now !" - "Will do,
sir, with boobs."), and will it fund the game to the same level
than, say X-Men online (not the most ludicrous idea for a MMORPG
I've seen to date ?

Not sure of that, at a time when "code, ship, we'll fix later" is
the common rule, and where innovation is gauged by the number of
bulletpoints in a buzzword-enabled backcover list rather than
originality in gameplay or setup.  But I sure hope I'm wrong, here,
and I hope we can sometime go beyond the lemmings games for the
masses we have today.

> The key point in textual MUD -> graphical MUD translation is a
> Rosetta Stone: being able to describe everything in either method.

...in both cases in an enjoyable fashion.  And that's only 1/2 of
the job, because we're talking about interactivity, here, and the
player must be able to interact in a satisfactory fashion in his/her
preferred mode to the full extent of the gaming experience, and that
is a real challenge.  "Take cover from fire asap" is something a
text parser could handle without worrying too much about details,
but the same command in a 3D game requires some decent level of AI
from the avatar, and it most likely should run server side...  Not
to say we couldn't manage it, with the proper will and time, but I
fear convenience will keep beating quality for a while.

Best,
	Yaka.

--

____________________________________________
Arguing with an engineer is
like wrestling with a pig in the mud.
After a while you realize the pig enjoys it.
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