MMO Communities (was RE: [MUD-Dev] MMORPG Cancellations:Theskyisfalling?)

[Paul Schwanz]

Byron Ellacott wrote:
> Paul Schwanz wrote:

>> What if, as a result of the rat-infested cellars, the quality and
>> quantity of Bubba's offerings to community patrons suffers.  He
>> can only make a few low quality swords and daggers.
>> Additionally, the NPC guards that patrol the walls and gates of
>> Sometown suffer degraded capability because Bubba is a major
>> supplier of their equipment.  This sort of model connects the
>> solo quest back to a community context.  When Boffo clears out
>> the sewers at great risk and personal sacrifice, the community
>> may notice.  They may recognize his accomplishment because it
>> affects *all of them* and not just Boffo himself (as would the
>> typical item or XP reward).  But Boffo needn't be an extrovert
>> with copious amounts of free time in order to attain this
>> recognition and sense of belonging.  He can pursue solo gameplay
>> at the tactical level (which requires much less social investment
>> and time commitment than team play) but still enjoy a sense of
>> community at the strategic level.

> The trouble here is that Boffo's actions have had a somewhat
> permanent effect on the game world: Bubba's cellar no longer has a
> rat problem.

In a game with a very thin context, that might be the case.
However, I'm not really interested in games with thin contexts.  I
don't want a static rats/no rats in Bubba's cellar.  I want rats
that filter up into Bubba's cellar out of the town's sewers based on
sewer rat population, and I want sewers that spawn rats based on
current rat population, the amount of grain (not stored in rat-proof
granaries) in the town, and other environmental factors.  There will
always be rats, but then there will also always be newbies to kill
them.  Of course, if the town decides to gather and pool the
resources needed to build a rat-proof granary, they could seriously
impact how often someone needed to go down into the sewers and kill
rats.

> Noone else can do this quest, because it is done.  Perhaps the
> rats move to another shop, or perhaps they come back, but then you
> have to worry about the quest losing the meaning you gave it
> because it has no real impact.  (Sure, the guards have better
> swords after Boffo's work, but the rats moved to the bakery, and
> now they're poorly fed...)

Even with your thin context, however, the gameplay wouldn't be any
worse than if you'd used static spawning.  When the rats do spawn
again, now there is a reason to kill them beyond simply gaining XP.

> Until the creation of such quests is a sufficiently small amount
> of work that it's OK to have only one person able to consume that
> work, it's impractical to have the solving of a quest affect the
> game world.

Which is why you don't hand-create quests like these, but rather
have them arise our of the interaction of environmental factors.
Don't focus purely on content.  You'll never have enough resources
to meet the demand for content.  Static content faucets get boring
very quickly and are readily unveiled as entirely meaningless
activities with no connection back to the game world.  Instead,
focus on context.  Create worlds that are living a breathing and
where actions have repercussions.

--Paul
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