[MUD-Dev] Congratulations Horizons...

[Chanur Silvarian]

From: "Lee Sheldon" <lsheldo2 at tampabay.rr.com>
> Vincent Archer wrote:
>> Chanur Silvarian wrote:
>>> Lee Sheldon wrote:

>>>> Finally we have the quest to free several "enslaved races" that
>>>> players will then be able to play. At the moment this requires
>>>> crafters to rebuild certain mines while adventurers stand guard
>>>> and slay the mobs trying to stop them.

>>> This sounds like it might actually break out of the FED-EX. I'd
>>> have to know a bit more about it because I honestly don't think
>>> an MMORPG can do anything other than FED-EX.

> See the more elaborate update elsewhere in this thread, but the
> opening of various tunnels has uncovered the next stage of the
> quest, destroying some mind-controlling machines. No one knows how
> yet, or even if all 4 suspected machines are destroyed, that this
> will be the last step in the quest.

>> Actually, it's not a quest in the sense we usually have it in
>> most MMOG.  No "one" is completing a quest here.  For most games,
>> a quest is something deeply personal.  You (the avatar) have a
>> quest.  You are helping in a friend's quest.  What is your quest
>> in here?  You don't have one.  Nobody who is involved has one.
>> However, you are involved in a story.

Fed-ex may well be the wrong term for what I see as "wrong" with
quests in MMOs today.  What I see as being wrong is the inability to
have an alternate outcome.  Eventually every quest will succeed with
a predetermined outcome. The package will be delivered, it just
might not make it overnight.  Given enough time it will succeed.

In Horizons, even though the quest you describe to free these races
is epic, where is the possibility of all of those people getting
together and taking control of the mind control machines themselves
in order to enslave the satyrs to them rather than whoever controls
them now?  I doubt that such a possibility was even considered by
the developers.  There is no other possible outcome other than the
satyrs will be freed, it is just a matter of how long.

I do applaud what they have done.  What you have described is still
head and shoulders above most MMO questing.  I just want quests that
have many possible outcomes and the possibility to fail completely.

I guess that is the roleplay gaming background coming out.  In
arcade games there is no failure, but in a pencil/paper D&D game
there is always the possibility of failure.  I don't find much
accomplishment in guaranteed success.

- Chanur Silvarian -
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